Holler Nashville Sessions Presented by George Dickel: MacKenzie Porter

Following her stunning UK Holler Live Session at the Betsey Trotwood Pub in London last year, we found it far too ‘Easy To Miss’ MacKenzie Porter and simply had to have her back.

This time around, it was in Porter's adopted home of Music City, with the Canadian hitmaker delivering three stand-outs from her April sophomore album, Nobody's Born With A Broken Heart, ‘Pay Me Back In Change’, ‘Easy To Miss’ and ‘Rough Ride For A Cowboy’ for her Holler Nashville Session, presented by George Dickel.

Each song showcases a different string to MacKenzie Porter's formidable bow, with the deftly navigated ‘Pay Me Back In Change’ finding the ‘Young at Heart’ singer-songwriter crooning intricately about how she sees through a lover's attempts to paper over the cracks.

It's a heartbreakingly candid ballad, with Porter's captivating vocals taking centre-stage alongside the gentle, poignant strum of her and Louis Johnson's acoustic guitars.

On ‘Easy To Miss’, Porter maintains that same gravitas with her vocals, but gives the track a more playful tone as her internal rhymes cascade satisfyingly down the instrumental.

Hearing ‘Easy To Miss’ and ‘Pay Me Back In Change’ side by side brings a new sense of appreciation for each track. Both offerings pivot around a witty piece of wordplay and explore heartbreak, but ‘Easy To Miss’ carries an intentionally lighter, warmer ambience compared to the cold, yearning atmosphere of ‘Pay Me Back In Change’.

‘Rough Ride For A Cowboy’, the last of the three songs in the setlist for MacKenzie Porter's Holler Nashville Sessions, presented by George Dickel, flips the script entirely. Porter assumes the role of a pistol-wielding, Annie Oakley-esque outlaw, as she gives the local Casanova a taste of his own medicine (“Nothing breaks his heart like breaking his pride / When he ain't got the reigns on goodbye”). Brandishing a bedazzled fiddle, MacKenzie Porter ensures this swaggering, rip-roaring tale feels as energetic and thrilling as ever in this acoustic setting.

With the sleek production eschewed in favour of sparse, raw accompaniment, the spotlight lands firmly on MacKenzie Porter's enchanting voice and the lyrical dexterity of these songs, reminding listeners that often - as she outlines on another of the many highlights from Nobody's Born With A Broken Heart - ‘Less Is More’.

For more Holler Nashville Sessions, see below: