If it feels like it’s been a minute since you heard from Gretchen Wilson you’re not wrong. The Grammy-winning “Redneck Woman” country star known for her independent streak hasn’t released an album of all-new material since 2017’s Ready to Get Rowdy or a single since 2024’s scorching “Little Miss Runner Up,” a one-off sequel to 2005’s “Homewrecker.”
But after winning season 13 of The Masked Singer this week, Wilson tells Billboard she’s ready to crank things up again after a long time out of the spotlight due to a run of serious health issues with an all-star Taylor Swift-style reboot.
“I had some post-COVID health stuff, I’m a long-hauler. I’ve got medications I’ll have to take for the rest of my life — high blood pressure, asthma — these are all things I didn’t have right before COVID,” Wilson told Billboard in her Masked Singer exit interview about why she’s been off the radar a lot over the past few years. “I also was dancing with a 6-year-old boy at a wedding, spinning, spinning, spinning, then I lost myself and I shattered my ankle and my leg, so I spent eight months in a wheelchair in a cast.”
Wilson says the cascade of health issues got her wondering if she might still have the stamina to “do a 75-minute show in Yuma, AZ” outdoors in August. But, after the reality singing show came knocking and she had a season-long run nailing rock, pop, R&B and Latin dance pop she realized she was ready to return to the spotlight.
Saying she has “lots of irons in the fire” at the moment, Wilson, 51, reveals the most exciting thing on tap this year is a “re-creation” of her breakthrough 2004 album, Here For the Party. “I am gonna do my version, sort of the way Taylor did, but on my label [Redneck Records],” she says. “But instead of just recreating it the same way, I am going to have a guest vocalist on each song. I’ve got a few absolute yes’s so far, but I was waiting for this [post-Masked Singer] moment so that when I make the rest of the calls they are quicker yes’s.”
While it’s still a work in progress, so far Wilson is proud to tease a duet with Travis Tritt on an unnamed song, something she’s been wanting to do her whole career. “I can’t think of another voice that would pair up with me perfectly,” she says. In addition, she’s re-worked her song “Chariot” with country trio Chapel Hart and has a number of feelers out to some “huge names” that she’s not able to talk about yet.
“I want to make sure [they know] I’m not trying to reinvent myself with the album, I’ve got other things going on and this will be good for them,” she said of the message to the A-list collaborators she’s shooting for.
One of those other irons is a role as “tour manager” or, as she dubbed it “tour momager” on the upcoming music competition series The Road. The show executive produced by Taylor Sheridan (Landman, Mayor of Kingstown), Blake Shelton, David Glasser, Lee Metzger and Keith Urban is slated to premiere in the fall on CBS and stream on Paramount+.
“Tour manager is the hardest job because it all comes down to you,” Wilson laughs. “Obviously on this production I didn’t have to do all the jobs a tour manager does — I wasn’t wrangling the buses or hotel rooms — but in the venue I was doing all the other parts a tour manager does: getting them on and off the stage, making sure they’re taking care of themselves, discussing songs changes, keys, modulations with the band on their behalf… just being the last face they see before they go on and the first face they see when they get off. It’s more like a tour momager role.”
She says none of the contestants on the show are “super young,” but most are younger than her and she calls them “kids” because, let’s be honest, they don’t have nearly the experience she’s had on the road. From playing in three or four bars bands at the same time at 16, to touring the world, Wilson says her road dog experience is worth its weight in gold as she helps the contestants make their way across the country. “What my role was to bring them my experience, any knowhow I’ve gained over the years, any tricks or secrets I know,” she says. “It’s not hard: go to be early, shut up, don’t talk too much, save it for the show. Just somebody to bounce ideas off of, to yell at.”
In the meantime, Wilson has a summer full of shows on her calendar, including slots at the Natchitoches Jazz and R&B Festival in Natchitoches, LA this weekend, as well as a spot at the Hoofbeat Country Fest in Cadott, WI the weekend of June 26-28 and a Grand Ole Opry House show on July 8 in Nashville.
