The Henningsens, ‘American Beautiful’ Video

There's a good reason why the pint-sized cutie in The Henningsens' "American Beautiful" video looks like she could be lead singer Clara Henningsen at about 4 years old. The family trio put a lot of themselves into their infectious debut single, and its accompanying video gives fans a glimpse of their lives as a singing family living the majestic simple life on a farm in Illinois.

"We played [music] in barns growing up," Clara explains. "Mom and Dad used to make a concert hall out of my aunt and uncle's barn. Folks from our home area in Central Illinois would come into the hayloft and we'd play concerts."

Which is just what they do in the brand-new clip, making its debut exclusively on The Boot today. Watch The Henningsen's "American Beautiful" video below.

Watch The Henningsens' 'American Beautiful' Video

"A lot of our friends and family actually are in the video," says Aaron Henningsen. "All of the imagery in the video reflects our life growing up."

"Our director, Darrin Dickerson, came up the idea of an adorable little girl starting off the video and reappearing throughout," adds Brian Henningsen, guitarist and dad to Aaron and Clara. "He wanted her to be photographed playing with a miniature barn and then the cameras would pan to a large barn, in which we'd perform and folks would dance, eat, and so on ... I told Darrin, let me build the barn for the little girl. I built Barbie doll houses and actually a small-scale barn for the kids when they were little."

"American Beautiful," co-written by the trio with Brett Beavers, put the family trio in the record books as the first debut song by a country group to hit the Top 30 in just four weeks. It had the most first-week radio adds of any debut song by a group in Country Aircheck's history, as well as the highest impact-week add total for a group since 1999. But don't be mistaken -- The Henningsens are not an overnight success story. They have been writing and performing for years and are co-writers of The Band Perry's "You Lie" and "All Your Life," as well as songs recorded by Wynonna and Sara Evans, among others.

Download "American Beautiful"

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