Hear Little Big Town's Emotional Cover of Miranda Lambert's 'The House That Built Me' at ACM Honors
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Little Big Town brought their famous harmonies to the Academy of Country Music Honors with a send-up to a modern country legend.
At the 2022 ACM Honors awards show on Aug. 24, the country vocal act took the stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to sing a cover of Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me" — and PEOPLE has an exclusive clip of the performance.
During the song, Karen Fairchild took lead vocals on the song's first verse while bandmates Jimi Westbrook, whom she married in 2006, and Phillip Sweet accompanied her on acoustic guitar.
The entire group — including vocalist Kimberly Schlapman — came together for a four-part harmony during the song's chorus, while Fairchild sang solo the song's iconic refrain: "I thought that maybe I could find myself."
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John Shearer/Getty Miranda Lambert and Little Big Town
The group received applause from the audience at the Ryman after the first chorus, and by the end, Lambert herself was overcome with emotion.
"Congratulations Miranda," Fairchild said as Lambert, 38, wiped tears from her eyes. "We love you so much."
At the awards show, Lambert received a coveted Triple Crown Award, given to the rare few who have taken home ACM new artist of the year, male or female artist of the year and entertainer of the year. Even with a grand total of 37 ACM awards already on her mantel, Lambert was fully savoring the moment.
"It means the world, honestly," she told PEOPLE on the red carpet. "I went to my first ACMs in 2005, I won new female in 2007, it's 2022 and I just won entertainer [in March]. It's just been such an amazing, long road, and that's all I've ever wanted … This is just affirmation that I'm on the right path still. And I'm like, here we go. What's the next 20 years gonna hold?"
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"It makes me want to work harder," she added, then corrected herself: "Smarter, not harder! I've worked hard enough. I want to work smarter!"
Fairchild called "The House That Built Me" — which Lambert originally recorded for her 2009 album Revolution — "magic" as she described how Little Big Town decided what to perform in Lambert's honor. The track was named the best song of the decade by the Academy in September 2019, according to Billboard.
"We could have picked a million things," Fairchild told PEOPLE before the show, "but that song won ACM song of the decade. We've heard her sing it on the road a bunch, but as we got ready for this, we listened back to the recording, and it's not just the magic of the way the song was written — which literally is magic — but her delivery and storytelling that's so beautiful and direct."
Fairchild added that it was "fun work" crafting a Little Big Town version.
Little Big Town were not the only artists to honor Lambert with a cover performance; Brooks & Dunn doubled the accelerant on "Kerosene," Lambert's fiery scorned-woman anthem, later in the show.
The 15th annual ACM Honors air Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.
