''The Bird and the Rifle'' is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter

Lori McKenna Lorraine McKenna ( Giroux; born December 22, 1968) is an American folk, Americana, and country music singer-songwriter. In 2016, she was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year and won Best Country Song for co-writing the hit single " ...

, released on July 29, 2016, through CN Records. It includes the song "

Humble and Kind "Humble and Kind" is a song written by Lori McKenna and first released by American country music singer Tim McGraw on January 20, 2016, as the second single from his fourteenth studio album, ''Damn Country Music''. McKenna later recorded her rendi ...

", which was written by McKenna and first recorded by

Tim McGraw Samuel Timothy McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has released 16 studio albums (11 for Curb Records, four for Big Machine Records and one for Arista Nashville). 10 of those album ...

for his 2015 album ''

Damn Country Music ''Damn Country Music'' is the fourteenth studio album by American country music artist Tim McGraw. It was produced by McGraw and Byron Gallimore. The album was released on November 6, 2015, by Big Machine Records. Its lead single, " Top of the ...

''. Despite the album's limited commercial success (it never charted on the ''Billboard'' 200), it earned critical acclaim and was nominated for

Best Americana Album The Grammy Award for Best Americana Album is an honor presented to recording artists for quality albums in the Americana music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors ...

at the

59th Annual Grammy Awards The 59th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 12, 2017. The CBS network broadcast the show live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, ...

Background

In an interview with ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', McKenna said that "there were more stories and characters on the last record, I felt like this record could be one character in different places in their life and relationships". Despite the album's focus on relationship breakdown, McKenna herself has not experienced it but says that "everybody, to one extent or another, knows the feeling". Of the title track, McKenna states that "people think it's a sad song, or they'll have to ask why I have a gun thing going on" but she reasons that "most people have felt that in a relationship". The title of the record came from Haley's 21st Birthday, a sixth-season episode of ''

Modern Family ''Modern Family'' is an American family sitcom television series created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan for the American Broadcasting Company. It ran for 11 seasons, from September 23, 2009, to April 8, 2020. It follows the lives of thr ...

'' where two of the characters briefly debated getting matching bird and rifle tattoos. Of this, McKenna noted "you never know where song ideas are gonna come from", mentioning that she was ironing with the television on in the background when the idea originated. The album was recorded live, the signature method of producer

Dave Cobb Dave Cobb (born July 9, 1974) is an American record producer based in Nashville, Tennessee, best known for producing the work of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, The Highwomen and Rival Sons . Cobb i ...

, who was introduced to McKenna by the co-owner of her production company who wanted to encourage McKenna to record a new album despite the fact she didn't see her number of releases "increasing anytime soon". Of the decision to include "Humble and Kind", McKenna and Cobb were both in agreement. "

" was covered by

for his 2015 album ''

''. McGraw's version won the

American Music Award The American Music Awards (AMAs) is an annual American music awards show, generally held in the fall, created by Dick Clark in 1973 for ABC when the network's contract to air the Grammy Awards expired, and currently produced by Dick Clark Produc ...

for Favourite Country Song as well as the CMT Award for Video of the Year.

Critical reception

''The Bird and the Rifle'' received highly positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 82 out of 100, which indicates "universal acclaim" based on 4 reviews. Timothy Monger at

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

awarded the album four out of five stars and deemed it "another extremely strong effort for Lori McKenna, whose growing catalogue is already known for its quality." Ann Powers at

NPR Music NPR Music is a project of National Public Radio, an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization, that launched in November 2007 to present public radio music programming and original editorial content for music ...

called ''The Bird and The Rifle'' "one of 2016's best releases", in part, due to "Humble and Kind", which manages to be "both widely resonant and specific". Powers also praised McKenna's voice, which she describes as "powerful but never grandiose, as if she's telling you something important but doesn't want to make a fuss."

Stephen Deusner Stephen M. Deusner is an American music critic and part-time record store clerk who lives in Bloomington, Indiana. A native of Tennessee, he has contributed to Pitchfork Media (including ''the Pitchfork 500''), ''Salon'', '' CMT'', ''American Songwr ...

from

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

celebrated the track "We Were Cool", likening McKenna to

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...

, stating that "McKenna knows that the power of a barbed lyric or a rich character relies on a bold melody and a patient vocal, and more than anything else her vocals put these songs across and make these stories relatable". Similarly,

Jon Pareles Jon Pareles (born October 25, 1953) is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of ''The New York Times''.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' also praised McKenna's voice as a "taut, lived in soprano that can take on a flutter or a rasp close to the country of earlier generations" and pointing out that the strength in her songwriting is the "mundane yet illuminating detail."

Accolades

McKenna became the first solo woman since

Jennifer Nettles Jennifer Odessa Nettles (born September 12, 1974) is an American singer, songwriter, actress and record producer. Nettles is the lead vocalist of the duo Sugarland alongside Kristian Bush, and prior to this she fronted the Atlanta-based band ...

in 2008 to win the Song of the Year award at the

Country Music Association Awards The Country Music Association Awards, also known as the CMA Awards or CMAs, are presented to country music artists and broadcasters to recognize outstanding achievement in the country music industry. The televised annual presentation ceremony f ...

and only the fifth solo female overall to win (following Nettles,

Kimberly Perry The Band Perry are an American band composed of siblings Kimberly Perry (lead vocals, guitar), Reid Perry (bass guitar, background vocals), and Neil Perry ( mandolin, bouzouki, background vocals). They signed to Republic Nashville in August 200 ...

Gretchen Peters Gretchen Peters (born November 14, 1957) is an American singer and songwriter. She was born in New York, where she wrote her first song with her sister at the age of 5. In 1970, her parents broke up, and Peters moved with her mother to Boulder, ...

and

K.T. Oslin Kay Toinette Oslin (May 15, 1942 – December 21, 2020) was an American country music singer-songwriter. She had several years of major commercial success in the late 1980s after signing a record deal at age 45. Oslin had four number one hits and ...

). Furthermore, McKenna is the only woman to win the CMA award back-to-back for different songs (following 2015's

Girl Crush "Girl Crush" is a song written by Lori McKenna, Hillary Lindsey and Liz Rose, and performed by American country music group Little Big Town. It was released on December 15, 2014 as the second single from their sixth studio album, ''Pain Killer''. ...

) and only the fourth songwriter overall to do so (after

Paul Overstreet Paul Lester Overstreet (born March 17, 1955) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He recorded 10 studio albums between 1982 and 2005, and charted 16 singles on the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' country charts, including two ...

Don Schlitz Donald Alan Schlitz Jr. (born August 29, 1952) is an American country music songwriter. For his songwriting efforts, Schlitz has earned two Grammy Awards, as well as four ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year awards. In 1993, he was inducted int ...

and

Vince Gill Vincent Grant Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American country music singer, songwriter and musician. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman of the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist b ...

). "Humble and Kind" won the award for

Best Country Song The Grammy Award for Best Country Song (sometimes known as the Country Songwriter's Award) has been awarded since 1965. The award is given to the songwriter(s) of the song, not to the artist, except if the artist is also the songwriter. There ha ...

at the

, while the album was nominated for

, and "Wreck You" for

Best American Roots Performance The Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance is an award category at the annual Grammy Awards. It was first presented in 2015. The award was first approved by the board of trustees of the Grammy Awards in June 2014. According to NARAS, t ...

and

Best American Roots Song The Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song is an award category at the annual Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs in the American Roots Music ...

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from

. ;Musicians *Brian Allen -

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

, hi string guitar,

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

* Barry Dean - background vocals *

Luke Laird Luke Robert Laird (born May 4, 1978 in Hartstown, Pennsylvania) is an American country music songwriter and producer. He has written over 20 number one ''Billboard'' singles, including Carrie Underwood's "So Small", "Temporary Home", and "Und ...

- guitar *

Hillary Lindsey Hillary Lee Lindsey is an American singer-songwriter. She has written songs with or for a number of artists including Michelle Branch, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Shakira, Lady A, Gary Allan, Sara Evans, Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Bon ...

- background vocals *

- vocals, guitar * Christopher Powell -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

*Kristen Rogers - background vocals * Mike "Mojo" Webb - piano, Mellotron ;Technical Personnel *Evie Coates - illustrations *Dave Cobb - mixing, producer *Becky Fluke - photography *Pete Lyman - mastering *

Matt Ross-Spang Matt Ross-Spang is an American record producer, Grammy award winning Audio engineer, engineer, and Mixing engineer, mixer. His credits include such artists as Jason Isbell, Margo Price, John Prine and Elvis Presley. Life and career Matt Ross-Sp ...

- mixing, engineer *Shane Stern - production coordination

Charts

Release history

Source:

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bird and the Rifle, The Lori McKenna albums 2016 albums Albums produced by Dave Cobb