Artist of the Week: Carrie Underwood

CountryTown is proud to announce American singer-songwriter, Carrie Underwood as our Artist Of The Week, following the release of her new single, Ghost Story.

Underwood was raised on her parents farm in the rural town of Checotah, Oklahoma. She started singing at her church and performing in local events and talent shows from a young age. While in high school, she got involved in sports and cheerleading, and ultimately decided not to pursue singing after graduation, instead studying communication and journalism at university. She worked at a restaurant, zoo and veterinary clinic while earning degree, as well as completing in numerous university beauty pageants and being an active member of her sorority.

In 2004, Underwood auditioned for American Idol singing Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me. One of the show's producers later said she dominated the voting, winning every week by a large margin, with the then 22-year-old crowned the winner of season four on May 25, 2005. Her winnings included a recording contract worth a million dollars, use of a private jet for a year and a Ford Mustang convertible. During the competition, judge Simon Cowell predicted that Underwood would not only win the competition, but she would also outsell all previous American Idol winners.

Her winning single, Inside Your Heaven, was released the following month. It debuted at number one of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and had first-week sales of 170,000 copies. She also broke Billboard chart history as the first country music artist ever to debut at number one on the Hot 100 and the song became the first song from a country artist to go to number one on the Hot 100 since 2000.

She released her debut album, Some Hearts, later that year, which also debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, with all singles – Jesus, Take The Wheel, Some Heart, Don’t Forget To Remember Me, Before He Cheats and Wasted – peaking on various charts.

Underwood followed up with her second album, Carnival Ride in 2007. Albums Play On (2009), Blown Away (2012), Greatest Hits: Decade #1 (2014), Storyteller (2015) and Cry Pretty (2018) followed. In 2020, she released her debut book, Find Your Path and dropped her first Christmas album, My Gift. The following year, she released a gospel cover album titled My Savior.

Underwood has also collaborated throughout the years including with Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Tony Bennett, The Rolling Stones, Miranda Lambert, Ludacris, John Legend, NEEDTOBREATHE, Dan + Shay, David Bisbal, and more recently, Jason Aldean on the smash hit, If I Didn’t Love You.

As of 2022, Underwood remains the most awarded country artist of all time. She’s won seven Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, sixteen ACM Awards, seventeen American Music Awards, nine CMA awards, twenty-three CMT Music Awards, among others.

Furthermore, the now 39-year-old has sold more than 70 million records worldwide, recorded twenty-eight number one singles and has seven albums that are certified Platinum or Multi-Platinum by the RIAA. She has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 2008.

Underwood made her film debut in the 2011 film, Soul Surfer. She also played Tiffany in How I Met Your Mother in the 2010 episode ‘Hooked’, and appeared as Maria in NBC’s The Sound of Music Live! in 2013. More recently, she made a guest appearance in the series, Cobra Kai.

Her latest single is Ghost Story. Written by Josh Kear, Hillary Lindsey and David Garcia and co-produced by David Garcia and Underwood, the superstar describes Ghost Story as “a different take on a revenge song, which is something I love to sing about.  Instead of smashing headlights, this scorned lover is letting her ex know that she will continue to haunt him no matter how hard he tries to forget her.”

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