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When Karen Fairchild was a freshman at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., two very important things happened to her.
First, she decided to try out for the school's vocal ensemble. She had grown up singing in church and harmonizing with her family, and while she was planning to become a teacher, she decided it couldn't hurt to audition-and she got in. "That freaked me out," she recalls with a chuckle. "That was the first time I thought, 'Wow, maybe I could do this for a living."
Secondly, she befriended fellow student Kimberly Schlapman. The two began singing together and before long, Fairchild had decided that her future lay in music-specifically, 200 miles north in Nashville. She moved to Music City after college, and Schlapman joined her there six months later.
"We started brainstorming," Fairchild remembers. "'What if we did something together? What would it be? Let's do something nobody else has done in country music." They decided to recruit two male singers because at the time there were no male-female groups in country music. "We wanted to forge a new path…one we could make our own. We grew up loving the harmony bands of the seventies and we wanted to capture the essence of that but with our own twist". Fairchild recruited her friend, Jimi Westbrook, and the three discovered Phillip Sweet in Nashville. Little Big Town was complete.
The band survived several years of struggle and hard luck before finding success in 2005 with hits like "Boondocks" and "Bring It On Home." Her bandmates credit Fairchild's endless perseverance and sound judgment with helping Little Big Town thrive despite overwhelming odds-but of course, it's her gorgeous alto that is her greatest gift to the group. "Karen can sing anything," Westbrook declares. "She has an amazing voice, and such a talented ear. She's got this cool, smoky tone. I love listening to her sing."
Luckily for him and for Little Big Town's fans, she intends to continue doing just that for as long as possible. "There isn't anything more satisfying than writing a song and watching that lyric come to life for somebody else," she says. "We don't take it lightly; the way people have embraced the music and given us a voice. We hope we can live up to that. We're going to definitely give it our best shot."
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