Quick Facts
In full:
Blake Tollison Shelton
Born:
June 18, 1976, Ada, Oklahoma, U.S. (age 48)
Notable Family Members:
spouse Miranda Lambert
spouse Gwen Stefani

Blake Shelton (born June 18, 1976, Ada, Oklahoma, U.S.) is an American singer-songwriter and television personality who first garnered attention as a popular country musician and then found mainstream success as a coach on the TV series The Voice. He appeared on the series from 2011 to 2023.

Early life and career

Shelton is the son of Dick Shelton, a used-car dealer, and Dorothy (née Bristol) Shackleford, the owner of a beauty salon. His parents divorced after he was born, and they both eventually remarried. He began both performing and songwriting while he was still in high school. At one such performance, he caught the attention of established songwriter Mae Boren Axton, who gave him praise and encouragement. Two weeks after Shelton graduated from high school (1994), he relocated to Nashville, where Axton also lived. She got him a job painting houses and introduced him to people in the music industry. In 1997 Shelton came into contact with songwriter and producer Bobby Braddock, who helped Shelton land a recording contract with Giant Records.

In 2001 Shelton recorded the songAustin,” a love ballad written as a series of answering-machine messages, and Giant released it to country stations. It quickly rose to number one on Billboard’s country singles chart and to 18 on the Hot 100 listing. When Giant Records folded, Warner Brothers picked up Shelton’s contract and in July 2001 released his eponymous debut album; it became the number three country album.

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Country music success

Shelton’s second album, The Dreamer (2003), reached the number two spot on the country chart, and the song “The Baby” was the top country single. The more-assured Blake Shelton’s Barn & Grill (2004) contained the charming and humorous “Some Beach.” Pure BS (2007) spawned the hit country-rock songs “This Can’t Be Good” and “The More I Drink.” Startin’ Fires (2008) included the number one country single “She Wouldn’t Be Gone” as well as “Bare Skin Rug,” a duet sung and cowritten with Shelton’s then girlfriend, Miranda Lambert; the couple married in 2011 and divorced in 2015. In 2010 Shelton released two EPs, Hillbilly Bone and All About Tonight. The rollicking title track of Hillbilly Bone, featuring Trace Adkins, was nominated for a Grammy Award for best country collaboration with vocals.

The Voice and “God’s Country”

By 2011 Shelton’s pleasing baritone was a staple on country music radio stations, but he reached a wider audience when The Voice, a reality television show, debuted that fall, with Shelton as one of the four coaches of aspiring singers competing for a record deal. His next two albums, Red River Blue (2011) and Based on a True Story… (2013), were both nominated for a Grammy for best country album. The songs “Honey Bee” (2011) and “Mine Would Be You” (2013) also received Grammy nods.

His popularity continued, with his next three releases—Bringing Back the Sunshine (2014), If I’m Honest (2016), and Texoma Shore (2017)—all topping the country albums chart. The 2019 single “God’s Country” became his biggest hit to date, topping the country chart for seven weeks and garnering a Grammy nomination. The song appeared later that year on the compilation album Fully Loaded: God’s Country.

In May 2021 Shelton released Body Language, which featured “Happy Anyway,” a duet with pop singer Gwen Stefani, a fellow coach on The Voice whom he began dating in 2015. Shortly after the album’s release, the couple married. Shelton left The Voice in 2023 to focus on being a stepfather to Stefani’s three children from a previous relationship.

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New record label and other releases

In 2024 Shelton signed a contract with BBR Music Group and released the song “Texas.” He also collaborated with Post Malone and Stefani on the singles “Pour Me a Drink” and “Purple Irises,” respectively. The following year saw the kickoff of his “Friends & Heroes 2025” concert tour and the release of For Recreational Use Only, Shelton’s first album on his new label.

Other TV and film projects

Shelton served as executive producer of a number of television projects, including the series Barmageddon (2022–24) and several Christmas-themed TV movies, beginning with Blake Shelton’s Not So Family Christmas (2012). He also appeared in the films Pitch Perfect 2 and The Ridiculous 6 (both 2015; Shelton played famed gunslinger and frontiersman Wyatt Earp in the latter film), and he lent his voice to characters in The Angry Birds Movie (2016) and UglyDolls (2019).

Pat Bauer The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Quick Facts
In full:
Miranda Leigh Lambert
Born:
November 10, 1983, Longview, Texas, U.S. (age 41)
Awards And Honors:
Grammy Award
Notable Family Members:
spouse Blake Shelton

Miranda Lambert (born November 10, 1983, Longview, Texas, U.S.) is an American country music singer-songwriter who crafted a repertoire in the early 21st century that ranged from rowdy revenge fantasies to sensitive ruminations on domestic life. Her recordings, along with her feisty down-home personality, resonated widely with audiences and made her a favourite of the country music establishment.

Lambert was raised primarily in the northeastern Texas town of Lindale. Surrounded by country music as a child—her father played the guitar at home—she developed an appreciation for both the mainstream country stars of the time and outlaw-style singer-songwriters such as Merle Haggard. At the age of 16, Lambert entered a local talent show, and after committing to learn guitar and write her own songs, she began performing at honky-tonk bars. At the time, her parents worked as private detectives and sometimes sheltered abused women, and her exposure to kitchen-table stories of betrayal and desperation coloured her songwriting. With a musical career in sight, she arranged to graduate early from high school, and in 2001 she self-released her first album, Miranda Lambert.

In 2003 Lambert appeared on Nashville Star, a televised talent competition, modeled after American Idol, for aspiring country musicians. Although she did not win, her spirited performances caught the attention of record-company executives, who signed her to a contract. Following the sweetly nostalgic single “Me and Charlie Talking” (2004), Lambert released the album Kerosene in 2005. Although its songs made only a modest impression on country radio, the album eventually found an audience, which consisted largely of young women who admired her artistic self-determination (she had a writing credit on all but one song) and her earthy demeanour. The rollicking title track, on which Lambert inhabited the role of a wronged woman hell-bent on revenge, scored a Grammy Award nomination and secured her a reputation as a charismatic spitfire. She continued to channel unvarnished emotions on the critically acclaimed Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2007). Fueled by such hits as the seething “Gunpowder & Lead,” the record sold more than one million copies in the United States and won her the first of several Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards for album of the year.

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Nevertheless, Lambert did not fully emerge as a major country star until the release of her next album, Revolution (2009). Though she did not entirely abandon the raucous fare for which she was best known, the sprawling collection found ample room for her reflective side. The wistful “The House That Built Me” became Lambert’s first song to top the Billboard country singles chart, and it earned her a Grammy Award (for best female country vocal performance), among numerous other honours.

In 2011 Lambert married fellow country singer Blake Shelton, whose high-profile role as a coach on the TV singing contest The Voice contributed to their tabloid-friendly image as a Nashville power couple. (They divorced in 2015.) That year also saw the debut of Pistol Annies, a group that Lambert had formed with friends Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley. The trio’s well-regarded Hell on Heels (2011) was swiftly followed by Lambert’s own Four the Record (2011), which featured the hit single “Over You,” an elegiac ballad she wrote with Shelton. She subsequently contributed to another Pistol Annies album, Annie Up (2013), before releasing her fifth solo album, the Grammy-winning Platinum (2014).

In 2017 Lambert collected her eighth consecutive ACM award for female vocalist of the year as well as her seventh Country Music Association award in that category. In addition, The Weight of These Wings (2016) was her fifth recording to win ACM album of the year. She also received praise for the country-rock Wildcard (2019), which later was awarded the Grammy for best country album, and for Palomino (2022). During this time the Pistol Annies released the holiday album Hell of a Holiday (2021).

Lambert next worked with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall on the collaborative album The Marfa Tapes (2021), a low-fi effort that was accompanied by a documentary. Later in 2021 Lambert reunited with Pistol Annies for the Christmas album Hell of a Holiday.

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