Country News

NASHVILLE, TN - FEBRUARY 24: Maren Morris performs onstage at New Faces of Country Music Dinner & Performance - Sponsored by ACM & St. Jude Children's Research Hospital | Performances Powered by Live Nation during CRS 2017 - Day 3 on February 24, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images for CRS)

Everyone has a defining event in their lives. Some, it could be argued, are for the worse. Some, of course, are for the better. Maren Morris can most definitely be counted among the latter.

The “My Church” singer was featured over the weekend on NBC’s Sunday Today With Willie Geist, who sat down with her at Nashville’s The Palm restaurant, where she watched the 2015 CMA Awards on TV they happened live across the street at Bridgestone Arena. Twelve months later she was on the CMA stage accepting the award for New Artist of the Year.

“I was in this booth with my manager Janet and my boyfriend Ryan [and] we were watching that TV,” she explained, motioning towards a TV on the wall. Asked if she’d ever thought she’d be on the CMA stage herself, she replied, “Definitely not a year later.”

Maren Morris: Writing 'My Church' was a 'defining factor in my life'

In this week's Sunday Sitdown, Grammy-winning country singer Maren Morris tells Sunday TODAY's Willie Geist about her journey from watching the CMA Awards in a bar to being named New Artist of the Year at the same ceremony the following year. Morris also shares why a defining moment in her career was writing her hit song "My Church."

She also discussed the career-making single “My Church,” which she co-wrote with her producer. “I realized I [didn’t] want anybody to sing [it] except for me, and that was a really defining factor in my life,” she told Geist. “And it changed the whole course because I was really protective of it and didn’t play it or send it to anybody … It really encapsulates my whole world view on music and what it does.”

Catch Maren on the road in the coming weeks in Ohio, Georgia, Florida and Pennsylvania. See a complete list of dates here.

 

Teddy McDonald is a fun-lovin’ country music fan man living in Nashville, Tennessee.