(Nashville)– Four-time GRAMMY nominee Kelsea Ballerini can now make it five. Receiving her first “Best Country Duo/Group Performance” nomination for “Cowboys Cry Too” with two-time GRAMMY-nominated multi-platinum-selling singer/songwriter Noah Kahan. The pair's inherent chemistry and willingness to probe people's most vulnerable emotions connected with the GRAMMY voters in a palpable way.
Having come together with a “Stick Season” mash-up performance at the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards, Kahan and Ballerini recognized each other's curiosity about the faltering places most of us face – and decided to collaborate further. That collaboration sees the 2024 “Best New Artist” GRAMMY nominee coming into the emerging country music superstar's world to co-write a song that leaves space for grief, doubt and raw feelings.
“I'm just so proud of the heart of this song, and the vulnerability it celebrates and stands for,” Ballerini says of the duet that debuted at No. 27 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart, was most added its first week, as well as amassing 12 million streams. “I believe a lot of people wish they could drop their armor, admit when they're hurt or scared — and not feel like a failure for owning very human emotions.
“When Alysa (Vanderheym) and I were writing this last fall, there was a real feeling of freedom celebrating the scope of feelings. Noah adding his perspective and lyricism made it a different level, and I'm so grateful he added his magic and made this song what it is.”
The New York Times offered, “With string-band fiddle and mandolin set amid an arena-country march, Ballerini and Kahan praise vulnerability as a different form of toughness, one that's not encouraged by family or culture,” People raved, “the artists bare it all, talking emotional suppression and stoic fathers, noting it's OK to pour one out from time to time – 'cause cowboys cry too',” and American Songwriter praised the “beautifully crafted country song that hits all the right notes, from the fiddle to acoustic guitar;” AS also cited the duet's power, “While this song could have worked with just Ballerini, Kahan's verses punch it up and give it a new point of view. This expands the song beyond a single mindset, making it universally understood.”
Kahan embraced the process, saying, “It's the writers who are willing to go to the awkward places that inspire me. Kelsea is one of those, and I knew if we could find something we both believed to sing, it would expand how we look at the way we live, what society decides and we should reject. ‘Cowboys Cry Too' is everything I believed our collaboration could be.”
With Kahan's vocal produced by Gabe Simon, Billboard notes that in spite of earlier collabs with Kacey Musgraves and others, the record, which features John Osborne on lead guitar, “(Kahan} has never sounded as comfortable picking up the cowboy hat as he does here.”
Both artists are TIME Magazine's TIME100 Next and Saturday Night Live veterans,
