Pistol Annies

Three Annies

Lambert and Ashley Monroe began writing together around 2009, and Monroe suggested Angaleena Presley; after hearing her music Lambert called them kindred spirits, per The List, and the three began writing and singing together in late 2009. Paste reports the group formed partly through the Oxygen true-crime series Snapped, which Monroe and Lambert watched together as Monroe introduced her to Presley's music. Lambert is from Lindale, Texas, Monroe from east Tennessee and Presley from eastern Kentucky, and the A.V. Club's Genevieve Koski hears Monroe as Tennessee country, Presley as Kentucky bluegrass and Lambert as Texas honky-tonk. The three kept their solo careers.

"Lemon Drop" debuted at Lambert's Cause for the Paws event in Tyler, Texas on April 30, 2011, and the television debut on CBS's Girls' Night Out: Superstar Women of Country, performing "Hell on Heels", is dated April 4 or April 22, 2011 by different sources. Hell on Heels (August 23, 2011, Columbia Nashville) reached 1 on Top Country Albums and 5 on the Billboard 200, with 44,000 first-week sales, and is gold at about 508,902. The single "Hell on Heels" reached 55 on the Hot 100 and is platinum. In December 2011 they played three sold-out headlining shows with John Fogerty and Blake Shelton as guests. Annie Up (May 7, 2013, RCA Nashville) reached 2 on country and 5 overall; their June 2013 tour dates were cancelled by the label. They also appeared on Shelton's "Boys 'Round Here" (2013, 12 on the Hot 100, number one on Country Airplay) and with the Chieftains on "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies".

Presley said in 2014 the group was on temporary hiatus. They returned with Interstate Gospel (November 2, 2018), which reached 1 on country and a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album in 2020, a sold-out Ryman show on October 25, 2018, and Hell of a Holiday (October 22, 2021). Setlist.fm lists 26 shows, 2011 to 2019. Billboard named Hell on Heels one of the 25 best country albums of the 2010s, per The List.