Miranda Lambert

Miranda Lambert defied all conventional notions of how a credible country career should proceed. Following an adolescence where she alternated between singing and acting, she came to prominence not as the winner but as a runner-up on the 2003 American Idol knockoff Nashville Star, a dubious stepping stone to stardom if ever there was one, but Lambert's 2005 Kerosene obliterated any notion that she was a reality TV refugee. Filled with lithe, powerful, neo-traditional country songs, many penned by Lambert herself, Kerosene established the singer/songwriter as a commercial force...