Miranda Lambert and collaborators Jack Ingram and Jon Randall brought the country to the CMT Music Awards on Wednesday night, performing “Tequila Does” around a campfire. Each member of the trio strummed an acoustic guitar, Lambert taking the lead on the drinking track.
“They don’t love me like tequila does / nobody can,” she sings. “They don’t give me that border town buzz / like tequila does.” All three musicians wore cowboy hats, and Lambert accompanied hers with a beige fringed jacket, a yellow shirt and jeans. The trio originally wrote “Tequila Does” for Lambert’s 2019 album, Wildcard, and included a stripped-down version on The Marfa Tapes. The album was recorded in Marfa, Texas over five days in November 2020 with an acoustic guitar and two microphones.
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“This will be our first time performing them in front of people,” Lambert told CMT ahead of the show of the songs from the project, “because the last time we recorded them was in Marfa, around the campfire.” “With a bunch of cows,” Ingram joked. Lambert agreed, “Yeah, exactly.”
“I think we’re all just ready to play,” she added. “It’s been a while since we’ve gotten to play. The last time we all played together was hiding out in Marfa writing songs. So the fact that there’s stuff happening and live music is coming back, we’re just thrilled to be a part of that.”
Lambert wasn’t only inspired by her home state of Texas for The Marfa Tapes — the Lone Star State also served as the inspiration behind the Grammy winner’s recently opened Nashville bar, Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa Tex-Mex + Cantina. The restaurant opened its doors in May, and Lambert stopped by over the weekend with husband Brendan McLoughlin and friend Jon Pardi, both of whom she took a turn on the dance floor with.
“It’s a very big deal to me to represent the female vision of a restaurant/bar on Broadway,” the singer told Sounds Like Nashville. “Growing up in Texas, I’m such a huge fan of Tex-Mex. It’s food that I love and now I get to bring that to Nashville to a bar with my name on it.” She added, “I’ve been very involved in the design because I want people to have a place that feels like my taste and so it mattered to me when folks go there, they feel like it’s Miranda’s place.”
