Lainey Wilson Reveals How a Fellow Baskin, Louisiana Native Helped Her Get Her Start in Nashville

Lainey Wilson moved from her small hometown of Baskin, Louisiana to Nashville in 2011. She showed up in Music City with a camper trailer and a dream. While living in that trailer, she wrote hundreds of songs and learned the ins and outs of Music City. However, she wasn’t alone. She had her mentor and fellow Baskin native Jerry Cupit to help her along the way.

During the new ABC News documentary special, Lainey Wilson: Bell Bottom Country, Wilson talked about her life, career, and more. During the in-depth conversation, she told ABC News correspondent Robin Roberts about how Cupit helped her when she first moved to Nashville.

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Lainey Wilson Remembers Her Late Mentor

Lainey Wilson recalled being “terrified upon moving to Nashville. “I was used to small communities and being able to call the neighbor down the road when I needed help but I didn’t really have a neighbor when I moved to Nashville,” she recalled. In fact, Wilson only knew one person in Nashville.

“I was living in a trailer. There was one guy from Baskin—Jerry Cupit,” she told Roberts. “My grandfather on my daddy’s side gave him a few hundred dollars to move to Nashville and get started. That was back in the late ‘70s. he wanted to be part of the industry,” she explained. “Years later, in 2011, he remembered what my Papaw did for him and he returned the favor by letting me live in his studio parking lot for free,” she added.

However, Cupit did more than let Wilson park in his parking lot. “He is the one who taught me how to write a song,” Wilson recalled. “Jerry Cupit gave me a lot of advice. He was my mentor growing up. He would listen to these new songs I was writing and he would help me get centered and focused,” she added. Then, she shared the advice she still reflects on years later. “He was like ‘Are you writing about a blue truck? How fast does the blue truck go? What does it look like? How does it sound? How does that truck make you feel?’ and I think about that every time I sit down to write a song.”

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