Little Big Town’s Kimberly Schlapman Reveals Mother’s Diagnosis

Little Big Town's Kimberly Schlapman revealed through her social media that she and LBT will participate in Michael J. Fox's "A Country Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson's" benefit on April 26, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. Kimberly posted to Instagram that her beloved mother has the disease.

Schlapman wrote in a lengthy post on Instagram, along with a photo of her and her mother, "As you grow up, there's a part of life you don't plan for. I'm there right now. My precious mother has Parkinson's disease, and she is fighting it like a warrior. I have learned in recent years that Parkinson's is incredibly complex and devastatingly debilitating. @littlebigtown and our friend, @bradpaisley, will be performing at a fundraising event for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, an organization that raises money for research on a cure for Parkinson's. "

She continued, "Michael J. Fox says his goal from the beginning has been to find a cure and close the doors of his foundation. If you or someone you love are in this fight or if you would just like to fight along with this incredibly important crusade, gather some of your friends and grab a table for a heartwarming & super fun evening. Check out this link below. (heart emoji)."

https://www.michaeljfox.org/countrything

Many fans showed their support in responding to the post, with one writing, "My heart goes put to you as you travel this journey. We are going through it with you. It is a challenge, but if we support each other, it will be ok." Another fan commented, "You two are always on my heart and mind." One more fan said, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry. Watching your parents suffer is heartbreaking. Praying for strength and perseverance and, of course, a cure."

Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild is spending her 54th birthday today (9/28) at work as she and her bandmates host tonight's People Choice Country Awards in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry House.

Karen, her husband Jimi Westbrook, and bandmates Kimberly Schlapman and Phillip Sweet have been staples in the Nashville music scene for over twenty years.

As a journalist, I've been interviewing this group since day one, and Little Big Town members are some of the nicest people in Nashville. In 2015, the group struck a chord when they released their Pain Killer album, which had such songs as "Girl Crush" and "Day Drinking" on it. That album won a Grammy for Best Country Album in 2016 and also won the Album of the Year honors in 2015 for both the ACM and the CMA.

I chatted with Karen not long after the album came out. She responded to the praise it was getting. Karen told me about Miranda Lambert, who cited Pain Killer as her favorite album at the time. "For me personally to know that another singer-songwriter entertainer of the year Miranda Lambert would like what we're doing and you know, be listening to it is incredible. We listen to all her records." She added, "She (Miranda) raised the bar. We wanted to up our game too. It's like every time we get back in the studio, we wanna take it to a new place and a better place, and we're super proud of the way Pain Killer turned out."

I spoke to Fairchild again in 2016 when her group released the Taylor Swift penned "Better Man." Karen told me how they presented the song to the public without revealing the superstar behind it. She said, "Taylor is the biggest pop star in the world, but she's a songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee, and she likes to tell a story, and we didn't want you to have any subtext there other than to hear this song."

She continued, "And we did that, and it had the biggest add day in our history with the guys at Universal that we ever had, and so we were like, 'Damn, we were right! This is a good song! You know? Nobody even knows!' So, for all the people that we told little white lies to, we didn't really lie. We said a young girl from Nashville, Tennessee, wrote it."

As we celebrate Karen on her big day, we take a look at some of her group's biggest and best songs.