When Kellie Pickler first hit the charts, she was still bathed in the spotlight of “American Idol,” garnering a fan base that swooned over her southern charm. It was no doubt one ingredient in 2006 that helped vault her “Small Town Girl” debut album into gold territory, buoyed by the success of her breakthrough single, “Red High Heels.”
Her second, self-titled follow-up two years later didn’t fare as well, but still enjoyed respectable sales, largely thanks to her first top 10 single on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, “Best Days of Your Life,” a co-write with Taylor Swift. But disastrous sales surrounding her third record, “100 Proof,” resulted in Sony dropping Pickler. While she managed to ink a deal with the more independent Black River Entertainment record company in 2012, her fourth outing, “The Woman I Am,” also fared poorly, with the singer leaving that label in 2016.
Not having a hit in years doesn’t exactly open doors for new opportunities in Nashville or even Hollywood. But when reminiscing about the fast pace of her ascent to stardom, Pickler probably realized how short the shelf life of her TV popularity might have been. “It was just like, ‘We gotta go, we gotta go. We have a deadline,'” she said to The Boot, recalling the madness in putting her debut, “Small Town Girl,” together. “‘We have to strike while the iron’s hot, because in a couple months, it was out with the old and there was a whole new top 24.'”
