The 2025 ACM Awards are set to provide a spotlight moment in country music history on Thursday night (May 8). ACMs host Reba McEntire will join Miranda Lambert and Lainey Wilson for a performance of their new song, “Trailblazer.”
The multi-generational trio announced “Trailblazer” just days before the annual awards show, explaining that Lambert and Wilson wrote the song together.
When they asked McEntire to join them in a text chain, she was immediately on board.
“We can’t tell you what’s in it,” Lambert tells Billboard of their group chat. “It’s off-color.”
The lyrics reference some of their biggest 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 explains. “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 intended to “pass the torch” to a new generation of “trailblazers” in country music.
McEntire is also hosting the ACM Awards again in 2025, and she will take the stage for a second time to perform “Trailblazer.” She’ll open the show by heading up a 12-minute opening medley that pays tribute to several of the ACM’s Song of the Year winners over the past six decades.
The 2025 ACM Awards are set to stream live on Amazon Prime Video form the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas.
Remember: The best way to watch the ACM Awards is on TV, with ToC on your phone.
Country is well known for duets, and there is no shortage of collaborations between men and women, women and women, or two men.
Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes