10 Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know

It's time for the first of our monthly round ups of the 10 Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know for 2025.

This month we’ve got an all-girl country pop trio who are giving everyone their side of Morgan Wallen's story, a singing mailman from Ohio signed to Big Machine and a supergroup formed by some of Nashville's finest songwriters, pickers and players who relocated to an ancient abbey on the Isle of Wight to record their psychedelic country-folk masterpiece.

All this and more as we whet your appetites with 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 February 2025:

We've said it before and we'll say it again, it's about time we had some more girl groups in country music!

With new music from Trousdale and Runaway June on the way and Remember Monday representing the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest though it looks like being a Girl Group Summer this year, and now Just Jayne join the party with their signature blend of breathtaking harmonies, hen party ready hooks and deeply relatable storytelling.

Nashville-based trio Just Jayne unites three passionate singer-songwriters -Taylor Edwards, Jillian Steele and Rachel Wiggins - who first connected as songwriting majors while they were at Belmont University by way of Georgia, California, Arkansas and New York

After posting their first TikTok last April - a harmony soaked a capella mash up of Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams,' Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream' and Brooke & Dunn's 'Neon Moon' - the trio have been teasing their growing legions of fans (which include Kelsea Ballerini and Bailey Zimmerman among their ranks) with their behind-the-scenes "worktapes" of original songs and shambolically lip-synced dance routines in the bathroom mirror.

"Songwriting is the most important part of the process for us," they shared about the inspiration behind the TikTok worktapes. "We thought it would be special to share how these songs started (super rough just the three of us writing on guitars) before the polished final versions gets released to the world."

Their debut single, 'This Morning,' released last week, is a response to Morgan Wallen's 'Last Night,' which tells the other side of the story from a female perspective on the regretful morning after a night of ill-advised romance, and if their TikTok worktapes of yet to be released songs like 'All Backroads,' 'New Boots' and 'Making Smart Girls Dumb' are anything to go by then there's plenty more country gold in them hills yet. Just Jayne might just be the best country pop girl group yet!

"We love harmonizing and really want to make sure the vocals make it obvious that you are hearing three girls when you listen to the music," they told us. “‘This Morning’ was the second song we ever wrote together, and the session just felt like three best friends venting about old toxic relationships."

“It tells the story of that person you keep going back to over and over again and finally waking up one day and realizing you deserve better — taking the driver’s seat and saying IT’S OVER!!!!! Everyone has that one person they think of when they hear this song, and whether you’ve been there and are out of it, or you’re singing it to convince yourself to put that toxic cycle to an end, we hope you scream this song at the top of your lungs with your best friends it heals you a little, like it did for us.”

As well as their more easily identifiable country influences, like Maddie & Tae and Shania Twain, the band's eclectic listening habits perhaps hold the clue to their distinctive, self-described brand of "Dreamy Pop Country." Jillian grew up listening to Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow and Michelle Branch, while Rachel lists Norah Jones, Miranda Lambert and John Prine among her early musical influences, but it's Taylor's that probably hold the final clue to their irreverent songwriting and playful pop sensibilities though, citing The Chicks and the Spice Girls as her most formative musical foremothers.

With that in mind, we couldn't let a girl group pass through the Holler offices without asking them what their Spice Girls style nicknames would be, and we can now proudly introduce you to "New York Jayne" (Jillian), "Pop Jayne" (Taylor) and "Country Jayne" (Rachel); and with that a multimillion-dollar franchise of Country Girl Power packed lunch boxes, pencil cases and fizzy drink sponsorships was launched.

'This Morning' is out now on UMG Recordings

Listen If You Like: The Chicks, Runaway June, Atomic Kitten

"My hope is for people to feel like they are standing by the river or walking through the trees when listening to my songs," explains Olivia Wolf. "I spent a good part of my childhood in Northern California, where the redwoods grow and the wind from the pacific hardly ever settles down. It allowed me to have an early connection with nature and the land which is a huge influence in my music."

It's that power of the healing aspects of the wider world that Olivia Wolf pulls from on her debut album Silver Rounds, an intimate journey of loss, resilience, escapism, healing and spiritual connection written after the accidental death of her fiancé just two weeks before their wedding date.

Produced by Sean McConnell, who has also collaborated with artists including Brittney Spencer, Ashley McBryde, Brothers Osborne and others, Silver Rounds is an existential outpouring in the aftermath of unthinkable loss - as she wrestles with grief and heartache, intense rage, escapism and, eventually, healing and gratitude - that finds inspiration in a 1950s typewriter, tarot card readers, graffiti on a bridge, marijuana and more signs from the afterlife.

“Silver Rounds tells the tale of riding the cosmic waves between the earthly and spiritual realms," Wolf says. "The connection of light and dark are so close and divided only by a thin line, one moment can change it all. When you lose someone unexpectedly, you find a deeper connection to the spiritual world while having to exist within the earthly one. This album tells the journey of trying to hold on to both of those worlds.”

Growing up immersed in bluegrass culture in Northern California and having spent time living in Virginia and now hailing from Leiper's Fork, Tennessee, Wolf's songs are a psychedelic mix of all her disparate influences that sounds like a honky tonk band playing in a dive bar in Bizarro World.

"Early in my childhood, the backseat of the car was where we heard music the most," she remembers. "My mom would put on Tom Waits and my dad Lucinda Williams. As I grew up, I found myself drawn to O Brother, Where Art Thou and so began my love of bluegrass and old timey music. Around the same time, I discovered Trisha Yearwood and Miranda Lambert, who made me fall deeply in love with country music."

Silver Rounds is a story of what happens to a person when they go from feeling on top of the world to feeling like the world has come down on top of them, recounted with a depth of feeling and understanding rarely reached for in modern music. A bold and essential record.

Silver Rounds by Olivia Wolf is out now

Listen If You Like: Ashley Monroe, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson

If you want to know how excited you should be getting about Elizabeth Nichols then just take a quick scroll through all the unreleased songs she's got stacking up on her TikTok. The answer is very indeed.

Delivered with bone dry humour and a hairdresser's down-to-earth conversational charm, her often hilariously honest deep dives into her personal life cover everything from gender double standards ('I Got a New One') and single mothers ('Mama Had to Do Both') to her woeful taste in men ('Bad Taste') and the wagging tongues of women at her local church ('Bible Belt').

"Listening to one of my songs is like reading a diary entry," Nichols says. "I want to make people really feel something when they hear my songs. I focus heavily on lyrics, crafting songs that are personal and clever but still relatable."

Fierce, funny and hard relatable, these are the kind of songs that Kacey Musgraves and Megan Moroney built their dedicated fanbases on, delivered with an eye-rolling conviviality and a breezy light-hearted sass.

"I spent a lot of time singing in my grandpa’s church which instilled in me the emotional impact that music can have on people," Nichols shared. "It also gave me a deep appreciation for gospel music and the power of storytelling."

Born in Plano, Texas, the 22-year-old singer songwriter grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, on the music of CeCe Winans and Marvin Sapp, as well as country legends like Kacey Musgraves, Dolly Parton, Toby Keith, John Prine and Shania Twain, and majored in English in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before moving to Nashville to pursue music. Having already landed a co-writing cut with Sam Barber for 'Morning Time' from his latest Restless Mind album and with her viral hit 'I Got a New One' already clocking nearly five million streams, it seems like that move to Music City might already be paying off.

'I Got a New One' by Elizabeth Nichols is out now

Listen If You Like: Megan Moroney, Mackenzie Carpenter, Kacey Musgraves

To lighten the sometimes hostile mood recently in our Holler weekly meetings we've taken to playing a game called 'Cheese or Services,' which involves us taking it in turns to quiz each other on whether something is the name of a cheese or a British motorway service station. Sacha would wipe the floor with us if we played it with her.

"No joke, it’s actually cheese country," she tells us about her small home town of Warkworth in Ontario. "We had a really good cheese factory. It’s really small and rural, agricultural, known for its rolling hills and cheese curds. Growing up in a small town, country living and country music has been a way of life for me from a young age."

The sign of a true artist is one who can take a particular sound or an influence and whatever happens it'll still come out the other side sounding like that artist; not because they're trying to make it sound different, but just because they don't know any other way than to be true to themselves.

"You can say that I’m a musical mutt," Sacha jokes, "because I do have the ability to tap into any sound and it still be authentic to me. But country music has been a large part of my life and upbringing. It made sense for me to pursue country music, I felt the most comfortable picking up my guitar, songwriting, and telling my story is where I fit best. I also like the ability to bring rock, pop, folk into my sound."

Since releasing her debut EP The Best Thing in July 2020, Sacha has collaborated with Jade Eagleson and with The Reklaws on their certified platinum hit 'What the Truck' as well as hitting the road with Maddie & Tae, Tenille Townes and Owen Riegling, all the while perfecting and refining her own unique recipe for country pop.

It's a recipe that's led to her most delectable and tantalising set of songs yet, released at the end of January as the Where to Start EP and including previous singles 'Hey Mom I Made It, 'High Life,' 'Til I Don't' and the sublime title track.

"I’ve been sitting on some songs for a couple of years, and 'Where To Start' was the most recent song I had written a few weeks before the release date," Sacha explains. "I had all these songs that I was sitting on that I felt put my best foot forward like, ‘Hey Mom I Made It’ and ‘High Life’ and few others I felt like would tie in nicely. I didn’t feel like the EP was complete with the songs that I had for this part of the project and felt that there was something missing."

"I remember getting ready to start decorating for Christmas, and I said to myself audibly “where to start” right there I said that’s it – where to start," she tells us about how the song came about. "I grabbed my guitar, started writing and texted my guys Shawn Chambliss and Jake Saghi asking if they wanted to help finish this song with me. The tree didn’t get put up that day. We wrote it over FaceTime, the notes app, voice notes and before you know it the song was done within a couple of days and we had our title track. There is a song about heartbreak, love, turning your life around, and just feel good music for the summer to turn up loud in your car. It’s an introduction to different facets of my personality, tying in my story."

Sacha's Where To Start EP is out now

Listen If You Like: Sophia Scott, Maren Morris, Ingrid Andress

Fredericktown, Ohio - a small farming town about an hour north of Columbus - is about to earn itself a place in the country music history books for being the birthplace of one of its brightest breakout stars. Of course, the residents of Fredericktown don't need us to tell them that.

Recently signed to Big Machine, 21-year-old Preston Cooper first picked up guitar as a high school freshman, but he soon discovered a natural gift for singing and songwriting when he joined the US Postal Service after graduation and found local fame as “The Singing Mailman," walking up to 14 miles each day while belting out his raw, raspy vocal runs, before hitting the region's honky tonks and bars to really put them to good use.

"Growing up in a place like that had a big impact on who I am today," says Cooper. "The community there is close-knit - people work hard and always look out for one another. It taught me the value of a strong work ethic, integrity and showing kindness to others. I wouldn’t change a thing about my upbringing. It shaped my perspective on life in ways I’ll always carry with me."

Released at the end of January, his debut single for Big Machine, 'Weak,' is a sizzling slice of slow burning, bluesy country rock that more than lives up to its influences. The earth-shaking power of artists like Chris Stapleton, Bob Seger, John Mayer, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt and Tom Petty are all infused into every carefully measured moment of it. It's a big voice to come from such a small town. This is soul music at its most literal.

"At the end of the day, the best way to describe it is simply the sound of Preston Cooper," the singer says. "It’s personal and true to who I am."

Preston Cooper will be supporting Riley Green on his Damn Country Music Tour in 2025. 'Weak' is available now on Big Machine.

Listen If You Like: Chris Stapleton, Marcus King, Teddy Swims

"Neil Young was kinda our family Jesus and our music education was very much grounded in '60s and '70s folk, singer songwriters and southern rock," Rose Lichtenfels (aka Rose Flower), Valley Flower's lead singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter says. "While my brothers always excelled on guitar, I kinda held it down as the jack of all trades master of none, learning a little bit of every instrument and leaning into singing and songwriting."

"Our house backed into a wooded forest along the Potomac River," she explains about growing up in Northern Virginia and learning to play music with her dad and two brothers - collectively playing violin, guitar, viola, drums, piano, banjo and singing. "When we weren't playing music we were in the yard, the woods and the creek. I was very fortunate to have had my family home so intertwined with the natural world. My mom taught us every critter in the yard was a part of our family circle. The trees were our elders. Our music has always felt like it takes place in the woods, near the mountains, dancing in an open field or on the road."

Joined in Valley Flower by Jonah Calvo on fiddle and dobro, Joe Wurst on lead guitar, Scott Stegall on banjo and Phill Brush on bass, the 5-piece band met picking in the Central Texas bluegrass scene in 2023 by way of Virginia, North Carolina and Minnesota

"In my late 20s I moved away from home on a whim to Austin," Rose says. "I didn't know anyone here, but I just had this feeling I needed to go. I got involved as a photographer in the music scene here and eventually found the courage to reconnect with my own music. I started picking every week in different Central Texas Bluegrass circles. Bluegrass as a genre reflects so much imagery and landscapes of where I grew up and playing it offered me so much comfort - it felt like home. I've been leaning hard on Ralph Stanley since moving to Austin. I met the rest of Valley Flower members in the Austin grass scene. We all share a love of traditional grass as well as being dead heads, lovers of classic country music and folk. We're all close friends and making music together just feels right."

"I would say our band ties together the roots of traditional bluegrass music with the freedom of '60s and '70s folk and modern-day jam bands," Rose says, trying to define a sound that's difficult to pin down. "Being a band that regularly plays Austin Honky Tonks, however, has also helped shape the country element of our sound: grass music people can groove and two step to."

It's that blend of traditional harmony soaked bluegrass, Appalachian folk, alt-country and jam band elements with a distinctly modern style of songwriting and Rose's warm rasp that gives Valley Flower their edge over other contenders. The 8 originals on their debut self-titled EP sound excitingly fresh and daring for a sound that dates back to the 1940s.

"Much of this album focuses on soul searching," says Rose. "A yearning to drop the bullshit and return to the natural world, or in other words, the most authentic and real version of ourselves."

Valley Flower's self-titled EP is available now.

Listen If You Like: Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Tyler Childers

"I'd probably say it’s a fusion of Country, Folk, and Americana," says Gabrielle Hope, as she ponders her unique sound. "Although, it feels strange to narrow it into just a few things!"

Gabrielle Hope doesn't need to worry about being reduced down into anything. The 19-year-old Appalachian folk singer who has amassed over 40m views across her first 25 videos defies any easy categorisation. After originally sharing a clip of her playing 'me and you' to TikTok at the beginning of 2024, the song has only continued to pick up momentum since it was released as a single last month.

Inspired by her contemporaries in the Appalachian Folk space such as Jean Ritchie, Tia Blake and Connie Converse, Gabrielle Hope sings end-of-the-otherworldly songs about love and loss, but anyone that comes to Gabrielle Hope's music will first be drawn in by her beautiful but unusual voice. With its strangely childlike, high-pitched inflection, her voice adds an extra layer of eccentricity to her already odd old timey field recordings that means they end up sounding like Joanna Newsom recording twee Appalachian anti-folk songs for the Juno soundtrack.

"I’ve always loved recordings that feel like you are sitting next to someone singing; you can hear their smile, laughter, and humanity," she told us about the recording. "After trying in studios, I chose to self-produce and record the song in my bedroom. I think the recording mirrors my writing process: silly, simple, and imperfect!"

"My Dad was an old folkie," she explains. "So he introduced me to Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Crosby Stills and Nash. My Momma loved the country ladies of her childhood like Dolly, Loretta, Emmylou and Tammy Wynette. I also grew up on a bunch of old folk tunes and gospel that naturally came through growing up in Tennessee."

"I grew up in the Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee in a family of nine plus one in heaven," she says. "I was homeschooled, so I spent the majority of my days in the woods and fields making potions and fairy houses. Everything about growing up outside left its thumbprints on my heart. When I was thirteen, my family moved up to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia (the most beautiful place on earth). The mountains and people here have shaped me to notice the difference that steady kindness can make in this life. I feel so lucky to call this place my home."

The videos she posts to TikTok have brought that beautiful place she calls home to life for viewers all over the world. Filmed in the woods and fields and featuring everything from her own introspective original songs to Woody Guthrie covers, cats falling from trees and her beloved dog Piper, they're the perfect accompaniment to her weird and wonderful worldview.

'me and you' by Gabrielle Hope is available now on Music Soup/Darkroom Records

Listen If You Like: Karen Dalton, Jude Brothers, Haley Heynderickx

It's been 20 years since Lynn Anderson was arrested for shoplifting after being caught stealing a Harry Potter DVD from a New Mexico supermarket and punched a police officer during her arrest, and Kasey Tyndall seems to be channelling a little of that same energy in 2025 with the latest single from her forthcoming album, 'Crystal Methodist.'

“’Crystal Methodist’ is the story of a typical hometown where everyone has skeletons in the closet," Kasey shares. "A place where nobody’s perfect, but it’s perfect just the way it is at the same time."

It wasn't all that long ago that Tyndall was worrying that the settled life her friends were enjoying in their mid-twenties was passing her by on 'Babies' while she was busy pursuing a career in music, but as her daughter approaches her second birthday, songs like 'Not as I've Done' find her reflecting, with the same unflinching honesty on a very different kind of journey.

"It's been the best time of my life," she told People Magazine last year about her marriage and motherhood. "I'm my favorite version of myself so far"

Growing up in Greenville, North Carolina, the 29-year-old singer spent a lot of her childhood either outdoors or soaking up the sounds of bluegrass artists like Alison Krauss and Rhonda Vincent, taking a detour through country rock courtesy of Brantley Gilbert and Miranda Lambert and letting her hair fully down for Avril Lavigne's post-grunge punk pop and 80s girl rock pioneers Joan Jett and Pat Benatar.

"A little bit of rock and a whole lot of country," Kasey Tyndall says, when pushed to describe her sound. "The emotion in each song determines which way the sound leans."

If you can imagine all these different corners of the musical universe coming together to collaborate on a country song then you'd be most of the way there to imagining the sound of Kasey Tyndall's forthcoming self-titled debut album, due out at the end of February. A writing credit on Lainey Wilson's latest album for 'Bar in Baton Rouge' won't come as a surprise to anyone.

Kasey Tyndall's self-titled debut album is released on 28th February on MNRK Records

Listen If You Like: Caylee Hammack, Pistol Annies, Ashley McBryde

"I never had a vision to be an artist until I started writing songs in college one day and couldn’t stop," Ashley Kutcher explains. "Figuring out who I was stylistically took me some time. While I went through some phases and tried a lot of different sounds, it took me figuring out everything I’m not to figure out who I am."

The Baltimore-born singer songwriter seems to have figured out exactly who she is and isn't in the last 12 months with two releases - her debut full length, House on the Water, released at the top of the year, and October's Play Responsibly EP - that perfectly pin down her country-tinged pop sensibilities.

After breaking through in 2021 with 'Love You From A Distance' when the song blew up on TikTok and quickly amassed over 100 million streams, Kutcher switched lanes in her mid-twenties back to her roots with a heartfelt country pop sound reminiscent of Maren Morris or Ingrid Andress.

"I love the timelessness and the clever storytelling in country music and the hooky nature of pop music," she says, explaining how she grew up listening to top 40 country radio artists like Tim McGraw, Shania Twain, and Jimmy Buffet, before discovering Andy Grammer, James Bay and Hozier for herself when she was a teenager, around the same time that her parents gave Kutcher her first guitar.

"I want my audience to go through all the emotions when I’m performing," she says. "I want them to cry to one song and two minutes later be laughing and dancing. I don’t want people to be like, 'Oh yeah I just go to Ashley Kutcher for my sad music.' I want them to also be like, 'Oh yeah I can shake my ass to an Ashley Kutcher song.'"

Ashley Kutcher is on tour with Michael Marcagi throughout February and March. Her Play Responsibly EP is out now.

Listen If You Like: Kelsea Ballerini, Ashley Cooke, Jillian Jacqueline

The course of country music has always been set by its outliers. Characters like Cowboy Jack Clement or Roger Miller, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson and more recently Sierra Ferrell and Sturgill Simpson.

Sometimes supergroups form in the most modest of settings. So, when seven of Nashville's most illustrious outliers - more used to moving and shaking country music from its fringes - flew over to an ancient abbey on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England the results were always going to shift the dial on Americana.

As Pedal steel wizard Spencer Cullum, East Nashville troubadour Andrew Combs, producer Jordan Lehning and drummer and vocalist Dominic Billet, along with multi-instrumentalists Eli Beaird, Juan Solorzano and Lehning’s brother Jason behind the board, gathered in Chale Abbey Studios for a very un-Nashville experience - no charts, no headphones, no isolation, no preconceptions or expectations - to record

"I believe the idea came about around drinks one night," Andrew Combs says. "It had been Jordan Lehnings’s dream to work on a record in the UK - he’s a fan of the blustery, moody weather and terrain. Spencer mentioned the Isle of Wight and how he had a connection with the Chale Abbey Studio manager and engineer, Dave Granshaw. It seemed like a no brainer."

"Credit to Jordan for keeping the dream alive and pestering us to find a time we all seven could make the trip," Combs adds. "And then, like magic, it happened."

"First and foremost, we are all good friends," says Combs about their supergroup dynamic. "I think you can hear the camaraderie and trust we have in each other on the record. Dom, Jordan, Spencer and I brought the songs in- some were fleshed out and some we finished on the spot. Along with Eli Beaird on bass, and Juan Solorzano on guitar/keys/steel, we all came together to play different instruments on each tune and really serve each song. A big shout out to Jason Lehning as well, who engineered and mixed the record and treated the studio live room as another member of the band."

It was their friendship that gave them the sense of freedom to follow the music wherever it took them and the result of the collaboration is their debut self-titled LP Echolalia. A rich, oddly beautiful blend of psych-folk, trippy Americana, space rock and jazzy folktronica that the band seem to have just as much trouble categorising.

"That’s hard to say due to all the different influences and angles at which we approach writing and playing," Combs says, equally at a loss to pin down their sound, "but maybe some sort of combination between the golden pop era of 70s songwriting, the weirdo folkies like Robert Wyatt and Bert Jansch, with some elements of kraut rock thrown in there."

That'll do for us.

And before any of you accuse us of casual sexism, we did ask Echolalia what their Spice Girls style nicknames were too. But we're still waiting on their answers.

Echolalia is released on Full Time Hobby on 28th February

Listen If You Like: Ryley Walker, North Americans, Jeffrey Silverstein

Listen to a selection of songs from our 10 Artists You Need To Know on the playlist below.

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