Part 1: ROAD TRIP!

Jencita and I left in the morning (after a quick photoshoot with Madison!) for a 3.5 hour road trip from California to Las Vegas, which ended up actually being a lot of fun! We finished getting ready in the bathroom at MGM Grand and our first stop of the trip was at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club in the “Underground” section of MGM Grand.

We were a couple of the very few people who were present at a special taping of ACM Sessions with Brandy Clark, which included a question and answer session with Lisa Lee, the SVP of Creative & Content Production for the Academy of Country Music. You can watch the entire Q&A session below!

After, Brandy played 3 songs for us. She started with her current radio single, Girl Next Door which is a sassy and catchy tune sure to differentiate her from other female country artists on the radio today. She changed the pace with an amazing song that tugged on my heart strings and gave me goosebumps called Three Kids, No Husband, which paints a clear picture of the struggles of a single Mom. That moment is when I considered myself a fan. I’ve been aware of Brandy for a while now, more in the sense of a songwriter than artist, but this performance and song sealed the deal for me. I was captivated by the power and emotion in her lyrics and enactment of the story. Watch the video below:

After her performances, everyone at the taping received a poster. I was able to chat a bit with my friend Lorrie, who was Brandy’s makeup artist for the taping. (My friend Lorrie works as a celebrity makeup artist for CBS!) Brandy actually came out after and met us and signed our posters for us. I would photograph it for this entry, but’s it’s currently in a box being shipped home with some other items that I did not want to take on the plane due to weight restrictions! 😉

You can see the other performances and read more here.

Part 2: MGM Grand

After getting to be a part of that private performance, we headed to the food court for some dinner and met up with the VP of BBR Music Group, JoJamie! It was so kind of her to spend some time chatting with us before the craziness of the ACM events began. Definitely one of my biggest inspirations in the industry, mostly because she willingly admits that she’s also a huge fan. She doesn’t mask it and try to act “cool”, she totally understands us “fans” because that’s where she herself started out. Also a huge inspiration due to her positivity and empowerment of other females. Would love to be a part of her girl gang some day! BBR Music Group is definitely a place where I could see myself working. #NashvilleGoals

“I’ll never apologize for being a fan first. Always. Those are my roots.” -JoJamie Hahr

PS. That’s us on the BBR Music Group snapchat!

Afterwards, we headed to Henderson where we would be spending the night to get ready for 95.5 The Bull’s 8th Annual Guitar Pull! Stay tuned for a recap of that coming up next!

In the meantime… view this day’s snapchat story (in case you missed it when it was live!)