In the 2000s, Lost Highway Records was the prestige country and Americana imprint for Universal Music Group's Nashville division. Like, say, Warner's esteemed Nonesuch Records, Lost Highway was a major label affiliate with indie cred. The label put out soundtracks for the Coen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou?, HBO's foul-mouthed Western Deadwood, and Paul Westerberg's music for the cartoon Open Season, as well as records by Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Hayes Carll, Mary Gauthier, and Lyle Lovett. In 2012, Lost Highway was subsumed into Mercury Nashville, but it returned this year with the involvement of Americana overlord T Bone Burnett, who worked with Ringo Starr on his country album Look Up and made it the first release on the reactivated Lost Highway. Today, the label has revealed a noteworthy signing that really kicks its new era into gear.
In 2011, Kacey Musgraves was the last artist to sign to Lost Highway before it ceased operations. Her 2013 debut Same Trailer, Different Park was originally supposed to come out on the label. She's remained under the same label umbrella since then, putting out her albums first on Mercury Nashville and then MCA Nashville in partnership with Interscope. Lost Highway used to operate under the Island Records umbrella, but it will now be part of the Interscope family of labels. So her signing to the back-from-the-dead Lost Highway is mostly a matter of corporate branding, though all involved are making a big deal about it.
Musgraves issued this statement in a press release:
Lost Highway was always a musical stable for artists who might be considered outliers or outlaws; those who live on the fringe. In 2011, when other record labels questioned my songwriting and my more traditional country sound, Lost Highway believed in me, signing me to my first label deal and helped me take my music around the world. That journey has now come full circle in such a special way with John Janick and Interscope and I’m deeply honored to be able to once again call Lost Highway my musical home.
To mark the occasion, Musgraves has covered the Hank Williams classic "Lost Highway," the song that gave the label its name. She's also the subject of a big Hollywood Reporter feature, in which she discusses the label change and discusses the album she's working on to follow last year's Deeper Well.
In THR, she explains that her return to Lost Highway should not necessarily be interpreted as some grand return to the country genre, which has remained a throughline in her music even as she has incorporated other elements: "While some might think of it as a 'return,' I want to make it super-clear that I never left. It's always been a home base, and it's truly where I’m sonically the most happy. But since the beginning, I’ve always had an exploratory foot out the door a little bit, allowing myself to infuse all these other genres that speak to me."
As for the new music: "I’ve written a ton of songs already. I love being in a period of time where I’m not rushed by a deadline and have the space to mosey and poke around. I’m not sure yet where it’s gonna end up. I’ve been feeling really good playing around with some more — I want to say traditional — but at the same time, there always has to be a modern edge there in some way. There has to be a balance between tradition and future."
Musgraves produced the "Lost Highway" cover with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, the same collaborators she's been working with since Golden Hour. Hear it below.
