Believe it or not, it’s been 25 years since Little Big Town started winning hearts and minds with their lyrics and harmonies. And to mark their quarter-century anniversary, the six-time CMA Vocal Group of the Year is bringing along one of their contemporaries to celebrate: five-time CMA Vocal Duo of the Year Sugarland will join them on the Take Me Home Tour this fall.

And if you weren’t around for their initial tours a couple decades ago, their performance of pop star Phil Collins“Take Me Home” on the CMT Music Awards on Sunday is just a taste of the concert-ready camaraderie.

“We’ve been lucky enough to tour many years ago together, we did several tours together,” Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles tells ABC Audio. “We’ve been on this show together, actually the CMTs, we’ve done a collaboration on this show even, before, many years ago. And we just love them, you know: we love them as people, we love them as artists.”

“Collaborating with them is easy,” her musical partner Kristian Bush adds. But settling on a song to lay down together may not have been so easy.

“Oh, yeah. It was a gigantic text thread of, like, ‘What about this? What about this? What about this?’” LBT’s Karen Fairchild reveals. ”And I guess Kristian had the idea. … And everybody was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Epic!’ You know?”

“Then you also have in your mind,” Karen adds, “’Can you do it justice?’ So we hope Phil Collins likes it, yeah.”

Sugarland last toured together in 2020, while LBT’s never stopped making music. In 2008, the acts did Dream Academy’s “Life in a Northern Town” together with Jake Owen on CMT’s awards show.

Tickets for the tour go on sale Friday.

 

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