13 minutes | Monday, 9 October 2023
'The CountryLine Songwriter Series', is where you'll hear from some of the most successful artists and songwriters working in Nashville today. Country music is all about storytelling and this is where you'll discover the stories from the people themselves of how they managed to find their way into such a competitive industry and rise to the top. What motivates and inspires them and what they've learnt along the way.
Born in Waldron, Arkansas and raised in Mammoth Spring, Ashley McBryde first showed an interest in music when she was just three years old when she tried to play her father's guitar. Her parents then decided to buy her one of her own and after learning to play it, years later she wrote her first song at 17. Initially, she was shy about performing in front of people, and it wasn't until she enrolled at Arkansas State University (where she played in the marching band) that she began performing her songs for those outside her immediate family.
In 2005, McBryde recorded a self-titled album's worth of songs, and released it herself the following year. Since she was a teenager, her dream had been to go to Nashville and break into the music business and in 2007 she made the move and relocated to Music City. She assembled a band and played any club or bar that would have her and began making a name for herself. In 2010, she and her band won a state-wide "battle of the bands" competition in Tennessee and in 2011, she released her second album, “Elsebound”, again through her own label. More touring through the south followed, and in addition to headlining her own club dates, McBryde was opening shows for such stars as Willie Nelson, Chris Stapleton and Hank Williams, Jr.
In 2016, she put out an eight-song EP, “Jalopies & Expensive Guitars”, this helped build a buzz around her music, and country star Eric Church began singing her praises, describing her as a "whiskey-drinkin' badass" and joining her on-stage to duet on her song "Bible and a .44”. After this more and more people began to take notice, and she finally broke through with the single "A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega", which found an appreciative audience on streaming services and led to her making her first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in June 2017.
A year later, she returned with her major-label debut, “Girl Going Nowhere”. The album earned McBryde her first Grammy nomination, for Best Country Album. At the beginning of 2019, she closed out that album cycle with the release of the title track as a single -- it earned Grammy nominations for Best Country Song and Solo Performance -- and at the end of the year, she launched her second album “Never Will”, with the hit single "One Night Standards”.
In March of 2022 she returned to the UK and Ireland to perform at the C2C Festival and chatted with Stuart Banford in Dublin.