Country firestarter Miranda Lambert’s excellent third album, Revolution, comes out next Tuesday — she made our Must List, and yours truly gave her a straight-up A in the pages of this week’s EW. Fresh off a sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium Thursday night — she played the new record start to finish, then threw in some covers and a couple of hits – Lambert checked in to chat with the Music Mix from Lexington, Ken., where she’s performing with Jason Aldean.
Entertainment Weekly: Tell me about the Ryman last night.
Lambert: It was awesome. I had a huge week anyway, cause Tuesday I did a thing for the ACM Honors, and I sang a Merle Haggard song, and hung out backstage with Kenny Rogers and Vince Gill and Steve Wariner and Merle. I was like a kid in a candy store. And then last night was huge.
What were some of your highlights from the performance?
Well, the fact that I got through the whole record without messing up any of the lyrics. It’s 15 new songs, and I’m like, “Aaah!” But I remembered everything. The reaction from the crowd on every song was just amazing. I had some artist friends that came, like Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift—I can’t believe these people took their Thursday to come see me. And then later on Jamey Johnson showed up and hung out. It was just really cool.
And that was the point at which you got blind screaming drunk with Jamey Johnson?
Uh, yes, I did do that. [laughs]
After the jump, more on the Ryman show, the new album, and why she doesn’t mind boyfriend Blake Shelton’s Twitter addiction.


Back in May, John Mayer asked an L.A. audience an urgent question in the form of a song:
Brit-pop bad girl
You’ve heard
Country up-and-comer Luke Bryan will release his second album,







