Caylee Hammack Brightens Up The English Countryside at The Long Road Festival 2023

Photography by Kendall Wilson

“Y’all know how to have fun in some damn fancy places,” Caylee Hammack joked from the Rhinestone Stage at The Long Road festival, gesturing towards the palatial stately home that stood in her sightline.

There aren’t many artists that we’d miss Megan Moroney’s second set of the day at the Buddy’s stage for, but Caylee Hammack is one of them. As Sunday afternoons in the English countryside go, this definitely wasn’t your usual potter through the Cotswolds for a cream tea, as Hammack brought the Georgia heat from back home with a fiery set of originals and a warmly received 90’s country medley.

Caylee Hammack wrapped her crystalline twang around a mix of songs from her debut album, If It Wasn’t For You, and recent singles like ‘All Or Nothing’ and ‘History of Repeating’ - co-written by her Lindeville co-conspirators Ashley McBryde and Nicolette Hayford.

At a festival that warmly welcomes your little four-legged friends it was no surprise when her latest single ‘That Dog’ received one of the loudest cheers of the day; and perhaps one or two barks of appreciation in there too.

Fresh off a tour supporting Dierks Bentley, Hammack wondered aloud if some of his country throwback band Hot Country Knights had rubbed off on her, before launching into a medley of 90’s country hits including Brooks & Dunn’s ‘Play Something Country’, Alan Jackson’s ‘Chattahoochee’ and John Michael Montgomery’s ‘Be My Baby Tonight.’

“There’s really only three real singers in the world,” Dolly Parton once famously said. “Streisand, Ronstadt, and Connie Smith.”

"The rest of us," she added, "are only pretending."

Caylee Hammack is definitely not pretending. Few other voices in modern country music rival hers for depth and power and her ability to lift a song up and make it fly. She rounded off her set with ‘Small Town Hypocrite’ - a song that features another one of country’s great powerhouses, Chris Stapleton, on the recorded version – before finishing with ‘All Or Nothing’ and ‘Family Tree.’

I just wish all Sunday afternoons were this spectacular. Another scone, Mary?

For more on The Long Road festival, see below: