What a Thursday for Hailey Whitters.
She made her late night TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live performing her current single “Everything She Ain’t” last night, and this morning, Kelly Clarkson covered the tune for the Kellyoke segment on her show.
You know you’ve done something right if Kelly is singin’ your song, seeing as she known to cover some of the best country out there, from Chris Stapleton to Willie Nelson, just to name a couple.
Hailey’s “Everything She Ain’t” comes from her awesome 2022 album Raised, and is easily one of the best from the tracklist… it has such a ’90s throwback sound, and her sassy delivery and funny lyrics are impossible not to love.
A co-write with Bryan Simpson and Ryan Tyndell, Hailey says the inspiration for the song and video came from her real life experiences growing up in Iowa:
“I love the girl-next-door nature of it and it’s quirky language. The music video was directed by Harper Smith and was inspired by my old high school ‘Cow Pie High’… the city kids called it that because it was the school that all the country farm kids went to.
I actually was the homecoming queen my senior year so Harper and I thought it would be fun to muse on that for this video.”
A Youtube comment on the Kelly cover (and there were several others like it) goes to show what a cool thing it is for Hailey to have a mega star like her singing the song for a massive, national audience and get her stamp of approval:
“Here’s the power of Kelly: I’ve never heard this song a day in my life, but I’m absolutely in love with it now that she sung it!”
Another win for country music, indeed.
Congratulations to Hailey on some very exciting career moments this week, and you can catch her out on the road this year on her aptly named Raised tour.
Here’s her Jimmy Kimmel performance:
And the epic Kelly Clarkson cover:
