Throughout the month of March, RADIO.COM will be celebrating the Leading Ladies of Country music with special interviews and performances from some of the biggest female names in the genre -- all culminating with a virtual end-of-month concert event.
Listen to your favorite Country music now on RADIO.COM.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we're celebrating the power of Women in Country by honoring iconic heritage female artists, showcasing the genre's rising stars, and spotlighting today’s hit female artists. Today RADIO.COM welcomes singer Ashley McBryde! Watch her performance of "Martha Divine," above.
Not only is Ashley one of our Leading Ladies, she has come up time and again during our chats with female Country artists all month as one of the women who not only creates astounding music but has also been a guiding light in their own travels in the industry.
After hearing Miranda Lambert and Elle King on their new collab track "Drunk (and I Don't Wanna Go Home)," Ashley admits "there are very few females that I would rather listen to than Miranda Lambert or Karen Fairchild's voices. But now I've got these girls that I'm friends with, thanks to Miranda, Caylee Hammack, Tenille Townes, and Elle King. I'm friends with Lainey Wilson now, and I just adore her."
Acknowledging that it's perfectly healthy to be a super-fan, "as long as you're not hiding in someone's bushes," some of the Country artists that Ashley has been singing along with since she's a kid are Alison Krauss, Terri Clark, Trisha Yearwood, and, "oh my gosh Tanya Tucker. I had the cassette of 'Some Kind of Trouble,'" she says before singing a line. "I loved that album."
Reminiscing further, Ashley remembers back to when she first heard her own song on the radio for the first time. "I was on the patio at a bar in midtown Nashville called 'Losers,'" she says. "I was actually there with two co-writers, and we heard '[A Little Dive Bar In] Dahlonega' on the radio for the very first time that day. We ran to my truck when the server told us that our song was playing. I clicked my phone on because I kind of knew that we'd want to know about that later in our careers."
Now an established and award-winning artist, giving her younger self some sound industry advice, Ashley would just say "buckle up, because it gets really bumpy. But it also gets really, really cool right after that... and I loved playing in bars. I wouldn't change that part of my life and that part of my career-building for anything. But there are some times where stuff gets weird, and stuff gets hard, and you're tired... which seems like a silly thing to say now when I haven't been able to go do the things I want to do that make me tired. But I really wouldn't trade any part of it for anything at all."
Looking into the future, while performing again at small clubs or arenas was at the front of her mind, Ashley's focusing on the goals of headlining at Nashville's iconic Ryman Auditorium, and eventually becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry. "I have now played 19 Opry shows, which is just a little, tiny drop in the bucket. I know you have to earn your place, and that doesn't scare me at all. I have every intention of earning my place and doing whatever I need to do to someday go and make my home at the Opry."
Summing it all up perfectly, Ashley says a phrase that defines her at the moment is 'dig in.' "I'm dug in and I'm just gonna keep digging in," she says. "I love everything about this industry, I love everything about Country music... I just think it's all really beautiful."
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