"Even Texas Loves a Little Woke Beyoncé Now, Huh?"

Country Trailblazer Mickey Guyton Shines at ACL Fest, Beyoncé Sends Love

Oh, joy! It’s not every day you see a "Today Show" crowd crammed with dudes filming whole songs as if they're the next Scorsese. And what’s with the drummer in shades, trying to be a technical wizard? Barf.

But hold on, because country trailblazer Mickey Guyton, Nashville-made, Texas-born, stole the show with her voice alone. Success? Check. She didn’t need any gimmicks.

And you know what they say about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery? Guyton covered Beyoncé’s “If I Were a Boy” and realized the queen of R&B had a country girl inside her. When Beyoncé stormed the genre this year, she sent Guyton a bouquet with a thank you card.

“Thank you for opening doors for me, queen,” it read. “Keep shining.”

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“I grew up in Waco, Texas, so this is such a dream for me,” said Guyton at Austin City Limits on Friday. It’s her first time here and, of course, she’s killing it.

She sang about her journey as a Black woman in a white-led genre. On “Better Than You Left,” Guyton shared how it started as a breakup anthem but evolved into a self-discovery song as a mother of a 3-year-old who nearly lost a battle with sepsis during COVID. She even talked about her husband's trip to the cancer ward and emergency surgery.

“House on Fire,” her new single, is all about navigating the emotional rollercoaster of romance. And guess who just had to yell “Free Bird!”? Some jerk. Guyton covered Tina Turner instead.

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Guyton’s music had the crowd singing along like a bunch of Target home goods shoppers, because her songs are both big and deeply relatable.

“Pretty Little Mustangs” tapped into her fondness for the wild nights of youth. She quipped about the challenges of writing drinking songs in a genre saturated with tequila and whiskey, especially with fellow ACL Friday performer Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey” around.

“Beer does not do well with my stomach,” she deadpanned.

So, she wrote a song about modern brunches with neon signs. “How did nobody write ‘Rosé All Day?’” she zinged before singing “Rosé.”

Guyton was so groovy that she even attracted a white guy in a Rasta hat with holes in his shirt—the festival hippy we all thought got priced out of ACL ages ago.

Of course, she squeezed in an encore of “All American” after the required “Mickey!” chants. Because rebels bend the rules of canned stage decorum all dang day.

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