by Jeff Clark, Contributing Writer

BILOXI (GG) — If you follow Ashley McBryde on social media (and if you aren’t following her on Instagram, the question is truly, “Why not?”), you were recently given a behind-the-scenes, real-time look at one of the most popular performers at Nashville’s CMA Fest, an epic event in a city full of big-scale events; nothing is small in modern-day Nashville. McBryde’s followers got to see her team doing her hair and makeup in the early hours of the day before hopping in a van and playing fan events at different venues across the city as she headed to Nissan Stadium, where she co-hosted the CMA Fest signature event with Cody Johnson.

She also performed a set at the stadium that included the new song “Rattlesnake Preacher,” which drops June 26, a cover of Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer,” and “Made For This,” the lead track from the 2023 release “The Devil I Know.” It’s also the title of a behind-the-scenes YouTube series of McBryde on tour. “Made For This,” co-written with Mississippi native Travis Meadows, paints a realistic picture of life on the road as a traveling musician.

“Sometimes I’ll have an idea that I feel sounds like this person or that person,” McBryde said. “I’ll write it down with their name next to it and bring that out when we get together next. But I prefer to write what’s in the room. Travis and I write together in a few styles. ‘Made For This’ was what was in the room that day. That room happened to be a garage with some couches and rugs in it. I was touring in a van with my band. Travis was touring in his big Ford. We started chatting about the struggles of road life — nutrition struggles, exercise struggles, and, certainly, mental health struggles. We each encountered friends and acquaintances asking what it was like to live the life we each lead. As is often the case, that was best explained over melody and rhyme.”

McBryde returns to Coastal Mississippi on Friday with a show at the IP Casino Resort Spa. Tickets to the 8 p.m. show are available at Tickemaster.com.

The Arkansas native is a GRAMMY, CMA, and ACM Award-winning singer-songwriter known for her authentic storytelling and high-energy performances. A Grand Ole Opry member, McBryde earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album for her 2018 major label debut, “Girl Going Nowhere.” She followed it with “Never Will,” the only album nominated for Country Album of the Year by the ACMs, CMAs, and GRAMMYs in the same season.

McBryde’s chart-topping duet with Carly Pearce, “Never Wanted To Be That Girl,” won both ACM and CMA Musical Event of the Year and earned her a GRAMMY.

She released the single “Ain’t Enough Cowboy Songs” in December 2024. The song is an ode to days gone by. It has been streamed almost 10 million times on Spotify.

“All three of us in the room that day (McBryde, Patrick Savage and Chris Harris) had a little extra something weighing on our hearts. Complaining about the usual: the state of music in the genre we love so much and have been so proud to be a part of. In many of my favorite movies, the person who calls out the issue like it is, is a cowboy. Not because they’re the strongest or the richest but because they see something that needs to be addressed. And not because they can fix it per se, but because not saying anything about it would make them guilty of the same violation of values.

While tuning his mandolin, it was Chris Harris who said, ‘Whatever we write today, I just know there ain’t enough cowboy songs anymore.’ The three of us decided that the most cowboy thing we could do would be to write a song calling out what was bothering us. In doing so, we realized that we were feeling blue because we felt so far away from the music that helped shape us. We needed to reconnect with what makes us want to write songs to begin with.

So we wrote it—not to get a number one, not with streaming numbers in mind, but with ‘somebody needs to say it, and it might as well be us’ in mind—holding to our values in that moment and paying homage to the greatest heroes of our lifetimes: The Cowboy.”

While McBryde has numerous awards from peers and musical associations, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from her alma mater, Arkansas State University. She was given the high honor during a commencement ceremony in May. Although music is her first love and passion, McBryde could just as easily have received a doctorate in literature as she has a knack for taking real-life situations and people and creating fictionalized versions through her songwriting. She made this abundantly clear on the album, “Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville.”

“Lindeville” is a concept album set in the fictional town of Linedeville. In this setting, McBryde finds her place in Southern literature along with the greats like William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.

“Thank you for the compliment,” she said. “Writing from the heart is all I know to do. I’ve tried it the other way — the way that’s like building a birdhouse — and it was terrible. I’m sure there are writers whose skill sets work best for those situations. But it ain’t me. Even if we’re making up the story we are writing, like we did for all of ‘Lindeville,’ it’s still from the heart and pulled from real life. For instance, I’ve never been to a ‘Gospel Night at the Strip Club.’ But I slept in my truck many nights after playing in the bars. I’ve been the sinner we sang about, the observer, and even ‘Lonnie the listener’ we mention in that song. We took a real-life event I had in a bar in Arkansas and used that to help us get the rest of the song tied up in a bow. Fictional story, yes. But very much from real events and straight from the heart. Thank you again for the compliment.”

(Front Photo submitted by Katie Kauss)