After eleven years spent performing at biker joints, county fairs and shops, Ashley McBryde finally landed a deal with Warner Bros in 2017 and emerged as a big-hearted, blue collar singer-songwriter with endless tales of small town struggles and traditional Southern life lessons. Born in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas on July 29th, 1983, she grew up on a cattle farm with a 40-mile round trip to school and one local radio station which gave her access to the country pop charts. Her grandmother taught her traditional shapenote singing as a child and, after seeing the Dixie Chicks in concert in her teens, she set her heart on a music career and began playing open-mic nights whilst studying at Arkansas State University. Heading for Nashville in 2007, she won a string of prestigious competitions and self-released a couple of albums, but she spent years crafting her raw, rootsy songs and honing her belting vocal range in front of small crowds across the Southern states. Her 2016 EP Jalopies & Expensive Guitars helped gain her some attention, but it was when country rock favourite Eric Church discovered her and took her on tour that things really started to take off. Her single “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega” became an anthem that celebrated overcoming hard times and was named as one of the tracks of the year by the New York Times. At the time, Garth Brooks also became a fan and started singing her songs at his shows. She went on to receive a standing ovation when she fulfilled a lifelong ambition to perform at the Grand Ole Opry, and her 2018 album, Girl Goin' Nowhere, was full of a country-pop portrait of small town America, touching on issues such as her rural upbringing, her father's terminal illness and the opioid epidemic. Serving as her major-label debut, the Warner-signed LP was also her first to chart, reaching #49 on the Billboard 200. She followed it up in 2020 with Never Will, which reached #54 on the US album charts and spawned the gold-certified single “One Night Standards”, a feel-good number celebrating passionate nights with no strings attached.
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