Ashley McBryde Takes Nashville, No Gimmicks Required (original) (raw)

Music|Ashley McBryde Takes Nashville, No Gimmicks Required

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/arts/music/ashley-mcbryde-girl-going-nowhere.html

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

The country singer and songwriter Ashley McBryde spent time in Nashville “trying to play the game.” Her debut album, “Girl Going Nowhere,” was made on her own terms.Credit...Eric Ryan Anderson for The New York Times

March 28, 2018

NASHVILLE — A couple of years back, after almost a decade in Nashville, Ashley McBryde had gained just enough traction to begin taking meetings with record labels. The conversations were, as they often are, dispiriting. She was advised to lose 20 pounds. For the cover of her 2016 EP, “Jalopies & Expensive Guitars,” she straightened her curly hair. The songs on it were, for the most part, ones she’d written for other people, not herself.

Despite these concessions, she was realistic, as she conceded one recent afternoon at her manager’s office here, gripping one in a series of beer cans: “It was a possibility that this item that’s being introduced to this petri dish will be rejected by the host.”

And initially it was. “We were trying to play the game,” she said with a shrug.

Striking out, though, was a lucky setback, encouraging Ms. McBryde, 34, to instead emphasize what set her apart: Her hair went back to curly, her tattoos multiplied, her songwriting became even more intimate — and she kept the most bruised ones for herself.

This reinvigorated version of Ms. McBryde is the one on display on her vivid and accomplished major-label debut album “Girl Going Nowhere,” due on Friday, which is among the most varied, warm and effortlessly confident country music albums of the past few years. Ms. McBryde is an alluringly flexible singer, fluent in classic country, blues and Southern rock, with a voice that moves easily from tender to tough.

It is also, for a contemporary major-label country release, refreshingly unmanipulated. “There’s no Auto-Tune anywhere on that thing,” she said. “We decided not to neuter it. That’s not to say that anything that’s Auto-Tuned has been neutered — for me it is.”

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT