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Country Music Resolution #1 – Canadian Girls Part 1 (Nashville-Based)

February 17, 2018 Nick Cantwell canada, country music, madeline merlo, meghan patrick, tenille arts

Have all your new year’s resolutions been tossed in the dustbin? Want ones that don’t feel like chores for the rest of the year? Discover the current world of country music outside of Nashville with B&G.

Country Music Resolution #1 – Canadian Girls Part 1 (Nashville-Based)

Belles and Gals have been feverishly discussing the merits of Lindsay Ell and Lindi Ortega these past two years so I would expect these are now household names for our regular readers – especially given Lindsay Ell’s second preeminent visit to the British shores for C2C festival and the C2C roadshow. But do you know the other ladies who have taken Canada by storm in the past few years to much critical acclaim?

Meghan Patrick
If you like: Carrie Underwood’s rock ability, Miranda Lambert’s don’t mess with me vibe, Kelsea Ballerini’s catchy pop melodies – all in one, with pockets of song writing extraordinaire and vulnerability.

Newly crowned Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Female Artist of the Year AND Sirius XM Rising Star, 30-year old Meghan has been making big waves since she released her first full length album Grace and Grit in 2016 on the Warner Music Canada label. One of my favourite pop-country albums to play all the way through again and again in the last few years. Just last month she put out her second album Country Music Made Me Do It – find the title track and lead single below.

Top 3 songs: Country Music Made Me Do It (Above), Still Loving you (feat. Joe Nichols), I Won’t Drink

Standout lyric: “Sometimes love just ain’t enough to keep the devil out of that picture-perfect house, ’cause there’s nowhere for secrets to hide when the walls come down.”

Tenille Arts
If you like: Kalie Shorr, Bailey Bryan, Brooke Eden and Carly Pearce (and Carrie and Kelsea as above)

Similarly to Meghan Patrick, Tenille relocated to Nashville a few years ago and you might have recently seen her on the Song Sufragettes Time’s up song (or even on The Bachelor too with her new song Moment of Weakness). 23-year old Tenille released her six-song EP in October 2016 where she co-wrote them all and saw the first track, “Wildfire and Whiskey,” was placed on Spotify’s coveted Wild Country playlist and has garnering over one million total streams across streaming platforms. I remember thinking that’s a pretty good record, I’ll add those songs to my playlist. But last year, when she put out her first full length album Rebel Child, she stepped up the game. On that album, you will find one of the very best country songs to be released in 2017 – Cold Feet (see below), a haunting and moving performance you’ll find it hard to forget.

Top 3 songs: Cold Feet (above), Alabama, Red Flag White

Stand out lyric: “I got lost just trying to love you/ Make those black lies look like the truth/ Put the band-aid on my heartbreak/Turn blind eye at the warning sign I’ve bleached every red flag white”

Madeline Merlo
If you like: your pop country sweet and free-spirited… Whitney Duncan, Raelynn’s upbeat songs, Danielle Bradbery’s first alnum

Madeline, a two-time nominated CCMA female artist of the year, released her first album Free Soul in 2016 and is currently out with a new, sassy and bohemian single Motel Flamingo (see below). She’s not just out on the road following her singer-songrwriter dream, last year she also starred alongside Jana Kramer and Sophie Tweed-Simmons in the musical film, Country Crush, which saw her play the lead role of a young woman trying to make it as a country singer. Like many of her fellow Canadian girls, she’s recently moved to Nashville – and grabbed attention of the national press with her lovely rose velvet jumpsuit on the red carpet of the ACM Awards 2017 – I’d be surprised if we don’t see more to her this year.