10 Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know

It's time for our monthly round up of the 10 Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know.

This month we’ve got the son of a '90s country legend keeping the flame burning, the first signing to the Black Opry Records label, a Michigan Wolverines football player with an unexpected gift for country pop and a couple of Canadian Country Music Association award winners.

All this and more as we dive into another of Holler's monthly roundups of our latest loves; a who's who of the most exciting prospects to begin leaving their mark on the country and Americana landscape.

Here's Holler's 10 New and Upcoming Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know for October:

Four albums in and as a back-to-back Canadian Country Music Association Female Artist of the Year, Meghan Patrick is by no means a new name to country music fans, but her latest album, Golden Child, is set to win over a whole lot more.

"Don't sing too sweet but try not to sound so tough," she sings on 'This Town', paraphrasing the music executives down on Music Row. "Don't sound the same but try not to sound too different / You're too country til you ain't country enough."

It's advice that Meghan Patrick ignored wholeheartedly with her new record.

Born and raised in Ontario but based in Nashville for the last 8 years, Golden Child is the end result of a leap of faith she's taken in herself, her voice and in that singular blend of country, rock, R&B and soul that she's made very much her own since her debut album, 2016's Grace & Grit.

“I made this record exactly how I wanted to, I told the [exact] story I wanted to tell, I told the truth and when you tell the truth, you have nothing to worry about,” she explains rightfully forthrightly.

A multi-faceted musician from a young age, her background includes co-founding an all-girl band at age 13, studying opera and jazz, fronting a 10-piece funk act that once opened for Aretha Franklin, and touring extensively as part of a bluegrass group.

She lists natural outliers like John Prine, Neil Young and Waylon Jennings as a few of her musical inspirations, all while growing up listening to The Eagles, The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Sheryl Crow and blues artists like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters from her father's record collection.

"I also got into a lot of heavier stuff in my teenage years from Thrice, to Pantera, to Taking Back Sunday and AC/DC," she adds, not surprisingly considering the emotional rock heart that pulses through her own music. "Aretha Franklin is one of my biggest inspirations as a vocalist, and I also listened to a lot of bluegrass (I discovered Chris Stapleton through The SteelDrivers) so a little bit of everything. I didn’t truly start listening to a lot of country music until my early 20’s. I first fell in love with Waylon, Merle, George Strait, Alan Jackson, then started listening to more of the newer stuff. Eric Church was the first 'modern' country artist I really got into and he's still probably my favorite new country artist to this day."

It's a list of influences that makes complete sense when you listen to the 18 songs that make up her wonderfully eclectic fourth album, from dashboard-pounding rockers like 'Whether You Love Me Or Not' and 'Dying Alone' to the outlaw country twang of 'What Shoulder', her version of No Doubt's 'Just a Girl' and stirring country soul ballads like 'Stoned Alone (feat. Caitlyn Smith)' and 'God and a Good Man'.

"I think, especially in this new record, we managed to blend it all together in a way that feels undeniably unique to me, and musically brings together everything that has made me into the musician, songwriter and artist I am today," she says. "What I’ve always loved about country music, is the storytelling and the honesty, and I feel like I’ve finally gained the confidence and the experience as a songwriter to truly put my songs into my own words and say it the way I want to say it. I think my writing style and lyrics are what defines my 'sound' the most."

A tough-as-nails traditionalist with a fiery feminist attitude, the raw, unflinchingly honest storytelling of Golden Child touches on a domestically violent relationship she fought to leave, dysfunctional family dynamics and cutting ties with her mother, and more than a few home truths about what it means to be a woman in music city.

"If my life is like a record, it just keeps on getting better," she sings on 'Other Side of 25,' reflecting on the hard learned lessons she's picked up along the way to her mid-thirties. "When I flipped it over it didn't spin any slower / But the songs get sweeter / The meaning gets deeper / I know I can't play it again so I'm really listening."

"I’ve been lucky to live a lot of life in my 37 years on earth" she says. "I’ve been saying that if you truly want to know me, listen to this record. It’s very autobiographical… it digs into my deepest hurt, the healing that came after, my wins, losses, life lessons and love."

"I quit looking in the mirror and seeing what you see 'cause there ain't nothing wrong with that girl staring back at me," she sings on 'Whether You Love Me Or Not,' a heartfelt anthem of self-acceptance. "She's funny as hell, smart as a whip and she doesn't take anyone's shit / I see myself so different now but I haven't changed a bit."

"This record truly feels like the record I’ve been working towards making my whole life, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever made," she continues. "Probably the biggest underlying theme is one of healing and self-love, and self-awareness. Learning who I really am, and then learning to love myself while fighting against what it means to go through life as the Golden Child, believing that you are only valuable and worthy of love when you’re successful."

'Other People' and 'The Boy Who Cried Drunk (The Demo)' are paired towards the beginning of the record as Meghan picks over the debris of a domestically violent relationship, the latter a slow burning grungey ballad that sounds like Carrie Underwood fronting Soundgarden.

"You keep trying to save him but that's why he ain't changing," she sings in her gritty drawl. "Then it's holes punched in the wall / 56 missed calls at 4am / Crying in a bathroom stall 'cause he's fighting in the parking lot again."

"I didn’t make this record to impress anyone, or to prove to myself. I made it from the heart, and followed my gut every step of the way even when I was the only one who saw the bigger picture," she says. "It was an exercise in trusting myself and making something truly honest that I knew I could be proud of, regardless of any external validation or commercial success."

She was right to trust herself. Golden Child is a modern country rock masterpiece and the kind of deeply personal record that most artists would simply be too afraid to cut.

Golden Child is out now on Riser House Records

Listen If You Like: Miranda Lambert, Lainey Wilson, Carly Pearce

"MY FIRST TIME ON STAGE EVER!" Adrien Nuñez posted on his socials on September 25th with a video of him joining Avery Anna at the Skydeck in Nashville, two days before dropping their collab version of his single 'LOW ROAD.'

It's been a swift rise in the world of country music for the Michigan Wolverines footballer, but two singles in and it's kind of hard to believe this wasn't always his calling.

'LOW ROAD,' was only released as his first single at the end of August, and its follow up, 'MINNESOTA,' are the kind of low-key party anthems that encourage people to inexplicably throw their pints in the air. A mix of Noah Kahan's Mumfords-esque folk pop and Shaboozey's genre-bending take on southern roots and rap, Adrien Nuñez's two singles so far have been as far away from Gazza's 'Fog on the Tyne' as American Football is from the English game. Thankfully.

'MINNESOTA' and 'LOW ROAD' are out now on Red Seat Records.

Listen If You Like: Shaboozey, Noah Kahan, Teddy Swims

Break ups don't have a linear narrative. They're disjointed and disrupted and all over the fucking place. One moment you think you've got your shit together, the next you're Homer Simpson pushing every button in the power plant trying to get something, anything to work as you want it to.

Thankfully, the new EP from Madeline Merlo, ONE HOUSE DOWN (from the girl next door), is appropriately non-linear. A profound six-track exploration of messy break ups and the complexities of navigating life with a newly broken heart, the narrative of the 6-track EP is built around the experience of moving on (and off and on again) from a relationship and the poignant melancholy of adjusting to your new reality.

"It's a project that took about two years to complete," Madeline Merlo explains. "The music takes you through some difficult moments of heartbreak and evolution and ultimately you end up exactly where you’re meant to be. This project is about finding yourself and your voice in the pursuit of love."

A small town native from the blueberry fields of British Columbia, Merlo started visiting Nashville on songwriting trips at just 16 years old, signed a record deal at 18, and found success at Canadian country radio, earning the Canadian Country Music Association Rising Star award in 2015. By 2020, she was competing on Season 2 of NBC songwriting reality series Songland – and with the dressed-down anthem of easy confidence, 'Champagne Night,' she came out a winner. The track went on to become a Platinum-certified three-week No. 1 for Lady A.

Musically drawing on a list of female artists who know a thing or two about turning heartbreak into art, Merlo takes the gutsiness of The Chicks and mixes it up with the party starting energy of Shania Twain and the diva star quality of Christina Aguilera. Add a sprinkling of Taylor Swift's self-aware confessionalism, Martina McBride's inner strength and the no-fucks-given attitude of Maren Morris, and you'll start to get an idea of Merlo's songwriting quality.

From the depictions of lonely nights in a California king size bed, to the way a car signifies something completely different after a breakup and the depressing realities of being left behind in a shared space, the EP ransacks her keepsake box to try to make sense of the end of a relationship. Dustin Lynch guests on 'Broken Heart Thing' as the pair roleplay two sides of the same heartbreak.

It's painfully relatable but comfortingly familiar to anyone who has ever been on either side of a heartbreak.

ONE HOUSE DOWN (from the girl next door) is out now on This Is Hit

Listen If You Like: Kelsea Ballerini, Megan Moroney, Lauren Watkins

Taking in classic honky tonk country to New Orleans and Cajun ragtime blues, Eliza Thorn's debut album, Somebody New, is a bold and (literally) brassy collection of delta soul infused Country & Western that slips down like a big sugary cup of sweetness.

"The only action in my hometown was a single blinking stop light, a village store and a junk-filled antique shop," she says fondly of her childhood in rural Connecticut. "My younger brother and I were not allowed to be bored. My dad would carve mazes in the big field outside my home on his tractor. If I wasn’t outside, I would put my energy into making up songs and learning chords from a book my grandma gifted me."

She carries that youthful restlessness over into her debut album. Produced by Mose Wilson - whose own self-titled debut set our country hearts aflutter a few years back - Somebody New feels like it's been cut by an artist who is completely unafraid when it comes to genre, hopping happily between ponds and making a splash wherever she lands.

"Somebody New is a collection of continental influences spanning from the Texas hills to the brassy Louisiana bayou, all the way to my now-home in a smoky Tennessee honky-tonk," Eliza Thorn explains. "The album itself is a mosaic of my life to date. It is more focused on an era versus genre. I wanted to embrace tradition while focusing on carving my own sound on this debut record."

"My first quarters in the jukebox were for oldies by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding," she says. "I was a soul and blues music junkie. I grew up in a post-Woodstock community that was deeply inspired by '60s and '70s folk, rock and bluegrass. My love for country came to me later on, when I was busking and hitchhiking around the Southwest."

Able to dig deeper into some of life's darker corners with her playfully tongue-in-cheek take on classic country, Somebody New gives the honky tonk a fresh lick of paint and a much-needed makeover. If Amy Winehouse had ever discovered a secret country side, she might've sounded something like Eliza Thorn.

"Most of the songs come from a place of vulnerability," she says. "I am always striving to tap into a deeper, more sentimental reserve. On stage, I like to make people laugh and dance, and it makes the trickiest parts of my artist journey worthwhile to see people connected and engaged with my music."

Eliza Thorn's debut album Somebody New is out now

Listen If You Like: Emily Nenni, Melissa Carper, Margo Price

Sometimes the song that starts it all off comes when an artist feels like they're already at the end. Growing up in Alexandria, VA, Jett Holden had given up on a career in music entirely when Holly G, founder of the Black Opry, stumbled across a recording of 'Taxidermy' online; the song that opens his debut album, The Phoenix.

“I found the first verse and chorus for ‘Taxidermy’ and asked if he planned on finishing the song,” Holly G says. “He told me he wasn't sure, so I got him a grant to finish and record that song.” She reached out to Rissi Palmer, founder of the Color Me Country Artist Fund, and sent her the first verses of 'Taxidermy.' Moved by Holden’s painfully earnest songwriting, Palmer awarded him the funds to complete the song, setting him off on the journey he’s on today.

“I wrote ‘Taxidermy’ in response to police brutality,” Holden says of the incendiary anthem he refers to as his “fed up” song. “I recorded it just acoustic and with a few strings, and that launched my career with Black Opry. To have such a divisive song be the one to launch me felt weird. I was so afraid to say those words.”

"They say the best songs are three chords and the truth," he sings, before adding the damning rejoinder, "until that truth and your belief systems don't quite align."

It's a powerfully righteous call for accountability and a furious indictment of slacktivism, that ends with a few words of hope for the future.

You are far too bright a soul to extinguish," he repeats soothingly as the song rages around him. "So hold on, hold on because you have a power far too strong to relinquish."

“That’s when I realized I had the power to do something really cool here,” Holden says. “People were connecting with my honesty, so I got a chance to say the things that people aren’t saying and Black Opry Revue performances gave me the chance to say those things in safe places. That song launched my career.”

As raw and abrasive as it is heart-stoppingly beautiful, his debut album, The Phoenix, is a collection of grungey-americana songs that owe as much musically to bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains as they do the folkier singer songwriters that Holden grew up listening to as he reflects on his experience as a Black, queer man growing up in the rural South. Produced by Will Hoge and recorded at Cartoon Moon Recording Studio in East Nashville, it features an all star cast of talented guests including Cassadee Pope, Emily Scott Robinson, Charlie Worsham and John Osborne.

"I always loved storytelling songs like 'Fast Car' by Tracy Chapman and 'Time in a Bottle' by Jim Croce," Holden says of his influence. "A lot of Damien Rice. But I also grew up listening to pop, Motown, 90s country, punk rock and grunge.

The Phoenix is an amalgamation of everything he loves.

"Jim Croce meets Dave Grohl, with a pinch of India Arie," as he describes it. "I always start with the story. That's my foundation. Then sonically, I pull from all my favorite styles. Folk, country and rock are my favorites, but I also take from my soul and pop influences as well."

"The title, 'The Phoenix' is about the resurrection of my career," he explains about the album that ended up being the first release on the Black Opry Records label. "When Holly G of the Black Opry found me on Instagram, I'd already given up on music, and I was very hesitant to re-enter that space. This album is a collection of songs I've written over the last 10 years that are very representative of me at different junctures of that journey. 'Scarecrow' tells the story of my coming out experience having grown up Jehovah's Witness. 'When I'm Gone' was a song I wrote following the suicide of a close friend. The Phoenix is everything I've wanted to say or need to let out but didn't feel safe or free to 'til now."

The Phoenix is out now on Black Opry Records

Listen If You Like: Ruston Kelly, HARDY, Stephen Wilson Jr.

A singer songwriter from the South Eastern plains of Colorado, Kade Hoffman is the latest in a wave of artists who have taken the Western half of traditional Country & Western and reimagined it as something both true to its traditions and richly contemporary, capturing their youthful experiences of modern rural life.

"I was born and raised on the plains of Colorado," Hoffman says proudly. "My family has farmed and ranched here for five generations, and I think being brought up surrounded by all that and working in it throughout my life has anchored me to a perspective on the world that I hope shows through my music and the way I try to carry myself as a person."

After releasing the truly delightful 'Hungover & Heartbroken' at the top of 2023, the next 18 months have seen Hoffman dropping a string of near perfect country folk singles that culminated in the Relics EP released last month.

Produced by Pat Lyons, the songs on Relics capture something of the classic country Hoffman grew up listening to. There's a little of Hank Williams desolate aching heart in 'Seven An Hour,' a touch of Willie and Waylon's wandering outlaw vision to the fiddles and roughly struck acoustic guitars on 'Tired of Waiting' and a whole lot of Johnny Cash to the rough growl he sings in.

"Johnny Cash hands down had the biggest influence out of anybody on me," he admits. "He's still my favorite."

Not a bad template to be working from.

The Relics EP is available now on La Honda Records

Listen If You Like: Colter Wall, Noeline Hofmann, Tyler Childers

Being born into country royalty, it's to be expected that you'd be brought up on only the very finest kind of country music and be fully au fait with its traditions and etiquette. Walker Montgomery is one of those heirs to the country throne who has fitted perfectly into the boots they were born into.

"I grew up listening to 90’s country," Walker Montgomery says. "Anything from Tracy Lawrence, Mark Chesnutt and Dad (John Michael Montgomery) were - and still are - in constant rotation."

Born and raised in Kentucky, the son of John Michael Montgomery and nephew of Montgomery Gentry’s Eddie Montgomery was raised away from the spotlight in Nicholasville, but moved to Nashville where he's been busy building on his family legacy with his own craft.

"My sound is straight up traditional country music, with an emphasis on true power ballads," he says. "I love having a steel guitar on stage when I play live and hearing a fiddle in the studio really helps complete my sound."

Walker made his Grand Ole Opry debut late last year and he's been notching up streams in their millions with his no nonsense take on traditional country along the way, through singles like 'Bad Day to Be A Beer,' 'She Don't Know' and the brilliant 'Love The Way You Love Me', on the way to his next Bart Butler-produced EP early next year.

Country music is in safe hands with Walker Montgomery.

'Love The Way You Love Me' is available now on Clear Creek Records.

Listen If You Like: William Michael Morgan, Midland, George Strait

Originally hailing from the small town of Winnie in Texas, Brady Riley's sound is steeped in the music coming out of the Lonestar state, even if it's the music that's taken him away from his humble beginnings.

"It taught me to make my own decisions, be my own person," Brady says about growing up in Winnie. "Stay grounded and to never forget where you’re from. A lot of my music stems from my hometown, my family, a lot of Texas country music really influences my writing. I grew up listening to Randy Rogers, Cody Johnson, Parker McCollum, but I also grew up listening to my girls though. Shania Twains album, Up! was my awakening of the pop Texas country vibe I try to go for."

"A little down home but also sad but also rock," he says, describing what goes into his self-styled 'Country Vogue' sound. "Also, my Texas country roots will always show through in my sound."

His bold and authentic representation of the queer community and his signature blend of glossy '90s country, stadium-sized pop and emotional '80s rock is captured on his latest single, 'Boy From Chambers County,' an honest and raw ode to his upbringing in Southeast Texas that reflects on the journey of outgrowing the familiar and stepping into new chapters, all while acknowledging the indelible mark his small-town roots have left on him.

"I’m learning that growing up in such a small town was cool, but it’s not my haven and it’s perfectly okay if it’s yours," Riley says. "Some love isn’t permanent, and some friendships aren’t either and that’s okay. It’s okay to outgrow someone. It’s okay to make yourself happy. this is me growing. Every damn day. I’m obsessed with the small town scenario that I have in my head, because that is how I grew up. I’m thankful for the mistakes that were made. The past lovers. The misfits and wannabes and the holier than thous. That has made me who I am today. No matter how many miles away I am from Southeast Texas, I will also always be a boy from Chambers County."

Boy From Chambers County is out now.

Listen If You Like: Tucker Wetmore, Bailey Zimmerman, Jessie Murph

"Today I found our old corkscrew, so I know what I need to do," Liv Greene sings on 'Flowers,' the fourth song on her new album, Deep Feeler, one of the truly loveliest albums you'll hear all year. "I am buying myself wine to drink alone."

It's just one of the many instances on the record where she picks up the smallest detail of everyday life and blows it up large to reveal a larger truth that gets to the very essence of the human condition. Like the songs of Gillian Welch or John Prine, her songs reach deep into your chest and just hold your heart there suspended.

"I grew up in a wooded corner of Washington DC in a brick house filled with music," Liv Greene says of her upbringing. "My parents always had our six-CD changer chock full of classic Americana, singer-songwriter, and bluegrass albums by artists like Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris."

Now calling East Nashville home, her sophomore album, Deep Feeler, is a collection of whip-smart, poignant story songs - all produced by Greene in collaboration with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Matt Andrews - that fall into the feminine tradition of songwriters like Gillian Welch and Emmylou. Greene adds a modern twist thats fitting coming from the heart and mind of a 24-year-old songwriter who grew up a bus ride from gigs in DC at clubs like Jammin Java, 6th & I, 9:30 club or The Birchmere. It’s feminine, queer and boldly defiant.

"I’d say my sound is warm, lilty, rhythmic, groovy and heartfelt," she says. "Deep Feeler is an album three years in the making, and a bundle of love letters to myself in my early twenties, a time when I was just learning how to be vulnerable. The 10 songs on this record capture me finally giving myself freedom and permission. Permission to take risks, to get my hands dirty, to mess up. Permission to let go of others’ pain and start to hold my own, to embrace the parts of myself that once terrified me (i.e. queerness). Permission to buy myself flowers and wine. And finally, permission to hold everything I feel - anger, gratitude, sadness, joy - deeply, and sometimes all at once."

Deep Feeler is released on Free Dirt Records on October 18.

Listen If You Like: Gillian Welch, Waxahatchee, Anna St. Louis

Born in Chicago and raised in New Jersey, Vincent Lima began writing original songs around age five years old – continuing into high school when he became infatuated with folk music and taught himself how to play the piano. Those classic folk influences of his early years, like Jackson Browne and Cat Stevens, are contemporised and made widescreen to take in the modern folk of Hozier and Noah Kahan.

“After the death of a close friend, I began writing songs about the grief process and realized they were so personal that I should start singing them,” he says.

This commitment to the cathartic motivation for songwriting is what gives Vincent Lima’s timeless, blues-inflected voice its depth of character, as he plunges down for his prize; the universality of human experience that he is only able to capture through retelling his own deeply personal songs.

After a string of singles, his debut EP, Versions of Uncertainty, arrived in July, featuring the single 'Orpheus' and five other songs that take inspiration from the tales of Orpheus and Eurydice and ponder themes of love, loss and hope in the modern world. His latest single, the powerfully emotive 'Captured', is the first taste of what's to come next.

'Captured' and the Versions of Uncertainty EP by Vincent Lima are out now.

Listen If You Like: Michael Marcagi, Noah Kahan, Hozier

For more of the monthly editions of Holler's 10 Artists You Need To Know, see below: