Three generations of country superstardom collided at the 2025 ACM Awards on Thursday night (May 8), when show host Reba McEntire joined forces with Miranda Lambert and Lainey Wilson for a performance of their new song, “Trailblazer.”
Wilson opened the performance, and one by one, Lambert and McEntire walked out onstage with their own verses about their musical heroes.
Dressed in matching brown leather and turquoise, the three artists sang in lockstep harmonies as they made their way through the performance.
Each lyric felt personal to the experience of coming up as a woman in country music, indebted to the powerhouses in the genre that paved the way.
The song also nodded to another perspective, too: “They gave me a seat at the table / And I’m savin’ one for you,” McEntire sang at one point, smiling as she pointed at Wilson and Lambert.
The three women announced “Trailblazer” just a couple of days before the show, explaining that Lambert and Wilson wrote the song together — and when they asked McEntire to join them, she was immediately on board.
The lyrics namecheck some of their biggest country music influences, including Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette.
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“We wanted to lean in pretty hard to paying tribute to each person,” Lambert added. “We had to do it strategically though, because we didn’t want it to be so blatant — but more like a secret thing that you would have to listen to it twice.”
They also wrote the song in hopes of conveying a sense of passing the country music torch along to a new generation of “trailblazers” in the genre.
Tributes, look-backs and full-circle moments have been a theme of this year’s ACM Awards ceremony, which is commemorating the 60th anniversary of the awards show.
McEntire — who is also tonight’s host — came onstage as a performer for the second time to sing “Trailblazer.” She kicked off the show by leading a 12-minute opening medley, which paid tribute to several of the ACM’s Song of the Year winners over the past six decades.
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The biggest stars in country music turned up to walk the red carpet at the 2025 ACM Awards, and they were looking good!
Gallery Credit: Sterling Whitaker
