Brett Eldredge has been a fan of Kelly Clarkson for a long, long time — 20 years, in fact. Eldredge first remembers seeing Clarkson perform on tour after her Season 1 win of American Idol, and being inspired by her talent even then. But it took until 2020 for the two singers to combine their talents, on “Under the Mistletoe,” from Clarkson’s When Christmas Comes Around … album, which was released in its entirety in 2021.

“I was in high school and I’ve always loved just the person that she is,” Eldredge tells Apple Music Country’s Trailblazers Radio with Fancy Hagood. “Two years ago or whatever it was, she reached out and said, ‘I’d love for you to be a part of this song ‘Under the Mistletoe.”” I was just blown away by the opportunity. So I found a studio as quick as I could and went and recorded my part to her song. And I still hadn’t met her at this point, which was wild.”

Eldredge didn’t have a hand in writing the song, which was written by Clarkson and Aben Eubanks, but he fell in love with it as soon as he heard it.

‘It just had a great energy,” Eldredge boasts. “It kind of had the throwback feel with some modern feel to it too. So it fit perfectly in what I do as well. And the first time we met was when we sang it together live…Which was really cool. And then I’ve sung with her several times now since then. And it’s really cool to experience that.”

Clarkson’s success on Idol might have inspired Eldredge to audition for the reality TV talent show, which he did more than once.

“I auditioned a couple of times,” Eldredge reveals. “I remember sleeping on… I think it was in Nashville. I was 18 or something like that. [My] family came here. We had a couch cushion in the back of the minivan. [We] slept in line. You were like sleeping zero minutes to go sing for 20 seconds or something.”

Fortunately, the Illinois native didn’t need a show like American Idol to find his success. Eldredge just released his seventh studio album, Songs About You, earlier this year. Included in that list are two Christams albums, Glow in 2016, followed by Mr. Christmas in 2021. He is once again on his Glow LIVE Tour, which included three sold-out shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

“It’s just a really special moment,” Eldredge says of his annual holiday tour. “You get to see not only in myself, which is part of why I got to love doing it, I feel like a kid up there. You look out there and you see grown-ups with big smiles on their face. You can almost feel like they haven’t had a smile like that in a while. Because it does that thing, it brings that magic out. And you have the horns blaring, got a little bit of bourbon on the rocks up there….You got the warmth of it. And a velvet tux. People in the crowd are now dressing up in their Christmas attire and it’s just a really special thing.”

Find the remaining dates on Eldredge’s Glow LIVE Tour and all of his music, including his duet with Clarkson, at BrettEldredge.com.