Country music is in Albertans’ blood. Summers wouldn’t be the same without it. We two-step at the Calgary Stampede. We put on our cowboy boots and rock it at the Big Valley Jamboree. And from Brett Kissel to Corb Lund, we’re used to topping the country charts.
It’s no surprise, then, that one of our own has been nominated for a Grammy for her work on one of country music’s breakthrough hits. Calgary native Elizabeth Lowell Boland, who goes by the performance name Lowell, has been nominated for both Song of the Year and Best Country Song for her songwriting work on Beyoncé’s billboard-smashing Texas Hold ‘Em.
We’ll find out the winners during the February 2, 2025, Grammy Awards ceremony.
“I’m feeling a bit numb right now,” Boland said in an interview with the Canadian Free Press.
She reflected this was “probably a defence mechanism trying to protect myself from the small possibility we didn’t get nominated.” While she knew it was pretty likely there would be Grammy nominations following the song’s release, when she received the news last week, it was still a surreal moment.
Beyoncé’s and Boland’s work on the album tracked Black artists’ contributions to country music over the decades. According to music review magazine Pitchfork, Texas Hold ‘Em is a “tribute to the Black roots of the genre, but it’s also a reminder that country-western music is fundamentally a kind of dance music, as Beyoncé beckons us to join her in a line dance.”
“Beyoncé wanted to do an older version of country that I find really exciting,” Boland told CBC News.
Other Alberta Grammys
This is not the first time Albertans have been nominated for a Grammy.
Between 2003 and 2010, Nickleback, originally from Hanna, Alberta, was nominated for six Grammys.
The Northern Cree, from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, has received nine nominations, most recently in 2020, for the Best Regional Roots Music Album for their album When It’s Cold – Cree Round Dance Songs.
In 2023, Airdrie’s Kyle McKearny’s album A Traveler’s Lament was nominated for Best Regional Roots Music Album.
Shawn Everett, who grew up in Bragg Creek, has won six Grammys for his sound engineering and mixing. He’s worked with various artists and styles, from Ke$ha to The War on Drugs.
Will Elizabeth Lowell Boland take home a Grammy this year?
Fingers crossed!
