The Unforgettable Fire: How Miranda Lambert Danced In The Flames & Became A Global Superstar

“Everything about it,” Warm says. “It was a whole album. It was the Ryman. It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone sing without a mic in a place like that – and it just cut straight into you. You could feel the energy around her.”

Without proper setup time to field a single opening act, Kraft, Lambert and Lee put the “Pink Guitars & Roadside Bars Tour” together with a cast of young male acts she believed in. As much about turning people onto music – like she would if you were hanging out – it was about proving that her unbridled girl energy could sell tickets. With “White Liar,” the Revolution single that became her first No. 1, she was making a lot of points without a single scolding word.

Show, don’t tell. Be the change you think the world wants to see. Rather than getting up in radio’s reality of slowing records’ chart movement down, she blazed across the country with Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Randy Houser and Wade Bowen opening. Rather than bitch, she rocked.

O’Connell ultimately bonded with Lambert in the parking lot of Boston’s Fenway Park swapping John Prine deep cuts for hours. He recognized something more than even the songs giving people back their lives is her gift.

“With Miranda, you can’t just go for the party. Is it fun? Yes. Will there be hits? Absolutely. Is it uptempo? Of course. But she’s taking you on a trip, showing you things, giving you so much more meaning – and rocking you while she’s doing it,” he says. “There are very few times in the course of any of our careers where you’re working with a true, first-ballot Hall of Famer – as they’re actually doing the work, forging what makes them someone you know will be in the Hall of Fame.”

Part of that is what you don’t see. As Lambert’s ascension solidified, Joey Lee teamed with agent Kevin Neal to have Lambert and Jason Aldean co-headline midsize arenas, flipping who closed each night. In Murray, Ky., sitting in the nosebleeds as Lambert went on first, a woman noticed Lee’s pass and asked if he could get some CDs signed. He demurred, but saw her two daughters “probably 7 or 8, maybe 11 or 12,” and felt horrible.

When Lambert was done, Lee headed to the bus, only to see the woman in the parking lot.

“There’s nowhere to go in that venue, and she asked again, standing there on a Thursday night,” he says. “Clearly, she’d brought those girls to see Miranda. When I tried saying I didn’t know where she was, the mother said, ‘She got on the bus…’”

Lee pauses, remembering how awkward it was. “So, I got on the bus, and there were business people up there, talking about something. I told Miranda what was going on, explained it was school night and all. She told those folks, ‘I’ll be right back.’ She didn’t just sign their CDs, she got off the bus, walked right over, got down on the ground with them, asked where they went to school, did they have fun? It wasn’t just taking a picture, it was showing them they mattered.”

Kraft remembers, “There was a bit of a Dixie Chicks moment, with the girls coming to the shows dressing like Miranda, clearly wanting to look like her.”

But “she’s as good as any artist, human or performer,” O’Connell says. “I don’t see gender when I look at her show, because she rocks as hard as anyone. There’s no getting around that. Even when she’s doing something broken down, there’s a punch to it. When she does ‘That’s The Way The World Goes ‘Round,’ it’s a masterclass in philosophy; oh, and if you don’t know, it’s by John Prine.”

Maybe that’s why the men are passionate, too. Lambert knows men need her perspective as much as the women need a voice.

“I look for the dads or the husbands, who came with their girls, because there are a lot of men out there who love the message. Or they just want someone they love to have a really good time,” Lambert says. “You’ll see ’em in meet and greets, the wife walking a little bit tilted ahead, and he’s behind, smiling, just letting her have her night.

“Who doesn’t want to be part of a ball of fire? The emotional, moody, crazy part is part being with a women who excites you. You’d be surprised all the boys with their great big beers singing every word of ‘Hell On Heels.’”

Kraft recognizes the power of message. Lambert has notched eight No. 1s in her 17-year career and her shows are a festival of scream-alongs that matter to the people attending.

“Sometimes we’d pick a single we knew had no chance of going No. 1, because it was the right thing in her career, where she was or what she wanted to say,” Kraft says. “‘All Kinds of Kinds’ was one those. It was a message she believed in, so fun for her to perform live and it’s a song that brought people together.”

Lambert, for all the hard edges, wants people to enjoy the ride, but also be mindful of how they live, to look out for those mistreated, to help where they can. That mindfulness informs how she tours; O’Connell recounts a sold-out show “in a major arena, where she’d played four years in a row,” and her saying, “We need to change this up. I don’t want anyone to ever feel, ‘Oh, here she is again.’ We want them fired up to be coming out.

“You don’t wholesale this,” he continues. “It’s surgical, and the details matter. She’s thinking about where to go and why. Everything must have a reason.”

Whether it’s the packages – this summer will see another “Bandwagon Tour” of amphitheaters with Little Big Town and The Cadillac Three; her second edition of the “Pink Guitars & Road Bars Tour” was a rotating all-female lineup that included Elle King, Ashley McBryde, Caylee Hammack and Tenille Townes – or the choice of venues, Lambert wants to keep it interesting, lean into music and give people more than they wanted, but what they didn’t know they needed.

Part of how is the alliances she’s forged along the way. Lee says, “They weren’t promoters, but partners for us from the very beginning. Glenn Smith before she even had a record deal, Brad Garrett who helped when we wanted to do arenas, Bob Romeo, Gil Cunningham, Troy Vollhoffer with Country Thunder and Ed Warm believed so early. They invested more than money and dates.”

Warm beams explaining Lambert will be the first female headliner of his Chicago Smoke-Out Festival. “First time she played for us, she finished soundcheck, got offstage and started setting up her merch table. 19? 20? Who does that? She was so focused on what she wanted; she played that night and every person in the room was talking about it the next day.

“When you can do that, grow that – and dream big, well, look what she’s done. It’s not because of anyone else, but what she does on that stage, how committed she is to her music. The records she makes are for a reason, then she gets onstage and shows you.”

O’Connell, who’s had her headline his festivals, concurs: “Onstage, big or small, you have to keep up with her. She closes because most people can’t follow her – and nobody does what she can.”

So why hasn’t Lambert won CMA Entertainer of the Year? Was it Garth’s decision to come back into play? Country radio’s female desert? The whole bro-country thing? This, for an award meant to be given for the winner’s overall impact on the genre? 

It’s just unfathomable at this point in her career, with consistently topping festival lineups, curating tours and supporting younger artists with meaningful exposure; her Idyllwind clothing line; her Casa Rosa restaurant, the only female-fronted establishment on Nashville’s teaming Lower Broadway; Mutt Nation, her four-legged charity; the consistently forward-leaning platinum-certified albums, which most recently include the double-disc Weight of These Wings, the Grammy-winning Wildcard, the Grammy-nominated Marfa Tapes, Pistol Annies’ Hell of a Holiday and a groundbreaking new album set for release this spring.

Then there’s her courage and trailblazing leadership. When COVID had the industry on lockdown, Lambert was the first major country star to play indoors. Announcing a series of Fort Worth shows at Billy Bob’s Texas last spring, sales were so fast that three shows grew to five, yielding the largest gross and biggest run at the storied venue.

“First, Billy Bob’s is her home state,” Kraft says. “We’d had a tour plan; she wanted to play. It was a year in, and nobody really knew… She’d been keeping her people employed, she wanted to have not just her road family together, but to bring people together with music.

“The venues wanted to stay in business, too. Even at reduced capacity, it was such a big moment. Billy Bob’s followed guidelines, they made it work, too. When she does things, people know she’s really thought it through. I think when people realized this was happening, it gave other people validation to do it too. If Miranda’s doing it, if she feels it’s safe, then they felt safe to give it a shot.”

Whether shooting out the lights, tequila or making a crazy dream real, Lambert is fearless. In a genre stacked against women, she keeps following her music and making it happen on her terms.