Carter Faith’s Cherry Valley Gambles Pay Off With A Surprise ACM Visit To Las Vegas
Categoria: Musica
In this week's lead story for Country Update, Carter Faith's Cherry Valley makes a splash at the ACM's.
Por Billboard | 15/05/2026
When Amazon asked Carter Faith to record a version of Faith Hill ’s “Let’s Go to Vegas” to promote the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards’ return to Nevada, she delayed a flight to Europe several days to accommodate the opportunity. Since their Faith-based names overlapped, Carter felt an affinity for Hill growing up, and the chance to do a song she associated with one of her heroes was too good to pass up. Related 2026 ACM Awards: Full List of Performers & Presenters Madonna & Peggy Gou Release 'I Feel So Free' Remix: Stream It Now Drake Returns With Three New Albums as 'Iceman,' 'Maid of Honour' & 'Habibti' Arrive: Stream Them Now “When you’re younger, you feel connected to people for random things, and that was one of the things for me,” Carter says. “They asked me to sing that song. I was like, ‘Hell, yeah, I’ll cut it.’” She had been forewarned that she did not qualify for the ACM’s new female artist trophy. The rules on the Academy’s website indicate that, among several other factors, an artist has to have earned a top 50 single, and Faith had yet to issue a song to radio. So when she found out during her overseas trek that Cherry Valley was a finalist for album of the year at the ACMs, which will be presented May 17, she knew something significant had occurred. “I don’t have a hit on there, I don’t have a radio song, I don’t play these arenas,” she says. “But I feel like people just really connected with the music because it was different and said something that maybe a lot of people haven’t said in a while. Or ever.” Cherry Valley is named loosely for a small community 40 miles east of Nashville’s Music Row. Faith had seen the name on a road sign, and she imagined a place where an upbeat veneer disguises a stream of difficult personal topics among its citizenry. The album explores sex, drugs, religion, hypocrisy and alcohol in a range of styles. The opening title track is a string-enhanced, cinematic outing, but the 15-song project drifts through folk, honky-tonk and traditional pop textures. Despite the wide range, it all holds together like an audio version of Valley of the Dolls : titillating, cheeky and gorgeous. “Carter and I listened to a lot of older music,” notes producer Tofer Brown (Willow Avalon, Little Big Town ). “We just are inspired by The Beach Boys, The Beatles, old country and all that. And we started noticing all these records that we were referring to, they all came out of, like, 1966, ‘67 and that era. The Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, and the sonics and the feel and the emotion and the heartbeat behind those records kind of inspired us.” While the individual songs wander a bit stylistically, they’re united by Faith’s simultaneously bold and fragile vocals and a consistent production team. Brown employed the same studio band on every track; if a player was unavailable for a particular date, they rescheduled at a time when the whole crew could reconvene. “It was