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Some parents push their children into performing, and some children push their parents into allowing them to perform. Kimberly Schlapman was one of the latter. "I always dreamed of having a musical career," says Schlapman, who hails from Cornelia, Ga. "When I was in school, I was in every talent contest I could find. My daddy would drive me all over the country to wherever I could find a place to sing."
Like her bandmates in Little Big Town, Schlapman made her performance debut in church and grew up in a house filled with family harmonies. "I think that's why it feels so good for us," she figures. "It feels like home when we're sitting around singing together." Schlapman continued singing whenever and wherever she could through high school and college, which is where she met Karen Fairchild. The two eventually headed for Nashville and began learning their way around the music business. In 1998 they formed Little Big Town with fellow singers and songwriters Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook.
The group's big break came only after long years of dues-paying, including a series of professional and personal crises that tested their commitment to one another and their belief in the idea of the group. "I never would have dreamed that four such completely different people could have sustained one another through the trials and heartache that we've had," says Schlapman, whose bandmates uniformly describe her role in the LBT interpersonal dynamic as "peacemaker."
During more than a decade together, Little Big Town has won over countless fans-who call themselves "Townies"-to their cause. "We made music for a long time and nobody ever heard it," says Schlapman, whose soprano adds an angelic note to the group's four-part harmonies. "So it's a thrill to have people buying the records and singing along at sold-out shows at venues where before we've played for just a handful of people."
Schlapman and husband Stephen welcomed a daughter, Daisy Pearl, in July 2007. Her arrival, along with the birth of Sweet's daughter several months later, only reinforced the idea that Little Big Town has become much more than a band. Now it's a family. "People may not understand our relationship, but that's the very best way to describe it," Schlapman says. "I hope that as the years pass, our relationship doesn't change, that we continue to love each other, get along and be each other's family."
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