I came here this morning to write about a song by Brittney Spencer, which I’m still going to do but along the way I also discovered a couple of other new songs out today and they were all interconnected so you’re getting all of them.

At the center of the connection is the cover of Lady Gaga’s “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” off of the tenth anniversary cover album of Born This Way. It’s sung by the core Highwomen, Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby along with Brittney Spencer and Madeline Edwards. They have always said that the Highwomen is a movement and not strictly a band of the four main members and they continue to draw new talent into the fold. It seems they have particularly been supporting Brittney Spencer since she covered one of their songs. Anyway, I really like this cover and am happy to have some more music created by these women.

As I mentioned I had originally planned on writing about a song by Brittney Spencer. I have actually been meaning to write about her music for over a year. She’s actually a Baltimore native and I read an article about her last year in the Baltimore Sun, but she hadn’t actually released her EP yet at that point. By the time it came out I kept meaning to write about it, but it just never happened for whatever reason. Despite all the momentum she seems to be gaining recently with an invite to sing at the Grand Ole Opry, a profile on CBS This Morning, a spot on CMT’s artists to watch showing in TImes Square, and other things she amazingly still doesn’t have a record deal. As a black, plus sized woman she definitely doesn’t fit the Nashville mold, so perhaps it’s not that surprising. Hopefully all the attention she’s getting means that things are changing in some small way and she will soon have the record deal and radio play she deserves. Last week she put out the single “Sober & Skinny” so it’s finally time that I too pay her some attention in my New Music Friday posts.

And finally Highwoman, Natalie Hemby released the song “Heroes” today. It felt like a nice little Highwomen trifecta when I realized that. I definitely enjoyed seeing her open for Brandi Carlile at the Ryman, so I’m very much looking forward to her full solo album.