GRACE BOWERS & FRIENDS

Grace Bowers was baptized by rock ‘n’ roll music. She cut her teeth on sweat soaked stages inside dive bars and found fellowship in the divine playing of B.B. King. She once studied six-string scripture – written by Slash and Leslie West – for hours a day, mastering her favorite riffs on a ‘61 cherry-finished Gibson SG.

As an up-and-comer in Nashville, Dolly Parton recruited her for a network television special and Tyler Childers requested that she join him on stage. She’s played with a who’s-who of three-chord storytellers and guitar-pickin’ torchbearers – Lainey Wilson, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Susan Tedeschi, to name a few.

And she’s not yet old enough to graduate high school. Phenom? Wunderkind? … Prodigy? No matter what label may be pinned to Bowers, she’s just a teenager who’s putting her faith in rock ‘n’ roll – one song at a time.

“[It’s] a cool thing,” Bowers said. “It blows people’s minds that I’m a 17-year-old girl, playing guitar. And as much as I hate being labeled as that, it’s true.”

But Bowers isn’t just a sought-after 17-year-old guitarist storming jam sessions with her Gibson and a gold-blonde mop of shoulder-length curls, of course. She’s a bandleader and songwriter preparing to leave her mark on some of the biggest stages in music. Her debut album, Wine On Venus – produced by ace guitarist and songwriter John Osborne (of hitmaking country group Brothers Osborne) – hits turntables and streaming services later this year.

Listeners get a first taste of the album on lead single and standout number “Tell Me Why U Do That,” where Bowers and her band – affectionately called The Hodge Podge – deliver a throwback, feel-good tune that comes jam-packed with funk grooves, soul-inspired melodies and a stop-you-in-your-tracks guitar solo. It’s the type of song that dares listeners not to stand up and sing along.

Bowers co-wrote “Tell Me Why U Do That” alongside Osborne and his singer-songwriter wife Lucie Silvas, plus Nashville artist-songwriters Meg Mcree and Ben Chapman.

“I hope this is the one that gets stuck in people’s heads,” Bowers said, with a laugh.

“Tell Me Why U Do That” and the rest of Wine On Venus showcases Bowers’ journey from a teenager who livestreamed bedroom practice sessions on Reddit – sometimes to 20,000+ viewers, no less – to a bona fide album-maker with more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. She picked up the acoustic guitar as a nine-year-old obsessed with so-called “cheesy” hair metal videos. A few years later, her fandom progressed to blues music after she stumbled across B.B. King while shuffling through radio stations in her mom’s car. The proverbial floodgates opened, leading her to discover essential blues artists Mississippi John Hurt, T. Bone Walker and others.

A native of Northern California, Bowers and her family relocated to Nashville two-and-a-half years ago, weeks before her freshman year of high school (Bowers now studies online). Not yet old enough to drive, she continued to grow her audience on social media, becoming a Gibson-endorsed artist by age 14.

She found her way to performing live, taking her skills to dive bars and pay-at-the-door rock clubs before graduating to guest spots at Newport Folk Festival, Nashville’s Big Bash New Year’s Eve concert and her own fundraising gig for victims of the city’s Covenant School shooting in 2023, among others.

How did one teenager cover so much musical ground in such a short time? “Lots of practice,” she said. “Lots of cutting teeth. Lots of not saying ‘no’ to people when I should’ve. Just being stubborn and persistent. I have worked my ass off to make this happen. Just hard work.”

On the album, Bowers and The Hodge Podge graduate from traditional rock and blues influence to sounds inspired by Parliament-Funkadelic and Sly and the Family Stone, she said. The group takes its name from a mixed bag of players that Bowers would invite to share the stage with on a given night. Despite now being a solidified group, the name stuck. The Hodge Podge includes vocalist Esther Okai-Tetteh, bassist Eric Fortaleza, drummer Brandon Combs, guitarist Prince Parker and keys player Joshua Blaylock.

Bowers co-wrote most of Wine On Venus in songwriting circles – a creative exercise that took her “a hot second” to comfortably navigate. But listeners wouldn’t know a first-timer was behind much of Wine On Venus; that’s clear on “Holding On To Something,” a savvy and confident number anchored by a riff Bowers began toying with years ago, she said. The song features a slow-building solo that culminates with harmonized playing and a high-flying howl from Okai-Tetteh. 

“I never forgot [that riff] and I was jamming on it one day with a friend of mine. We were writing some lyrics to it and we called over Esther,” she said. “This was the first time we had ever written [together]. It turned out to be that song.”

And Wine On Venus features a cover of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance To The Music” that takes on a Hodge Podge twist.

“It was just fun,” Bowers said, recalling the cover session with a laugh. “If you listen to it, you can hear all of our voices in the background throughout the entire song, which I thought was a cool thing to keep in. That one took us a couple hours to knock out. It was a fun, easy song.”

This year, Bowers and the band take Wine On Venus on the road for a run of dream-making festival shows, including slots at BottleRock Napa Valley, Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, Bourbon & Beyond and Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival, among others.

But a booked schedule doesn’t mean Bowers isn’t already thinking about the next project. Like most people who believe in something, she wants to find out where this rock ‘n’ roll journey leads her. 

“I love it,” she said. “Seeing where I can go with it, I still have so much to learn.”

Lauded by Rolling Stone as “an ambitious, entrepreneurial guitar heroine primed to bring back the pop-country glory of the Nineties,” Caroline Jones is a multi-genre singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist enriching the country scene with her unique, independent spirit. She officially joined multi-platinum GRAMMY-Award winning Zac Brown Band in 2022 as a full-time band member, making her the first and only female. Her sophomore album, Antipodes (November 2021), debuted at #4 on the iTunes Country Chart and its lead single, “Come In (But Don’t Make Yourself Comfortable),” is Jones’ first Top 30 country hit that is still climbing the charts thanks to its viral TikTok line dance that has been played over 540 million times. As with her debut album Bare Feet (August 2017), Caroline co-produced Antipodes with Ric Wake (Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston), performed majority of the instruments, and solo wrote majority of the tracks. Antipodes also features collaborations with industry heavy-hitters Zac Brown, Joe Bonamassa, Mac McAnally, and Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey.

Caroline’s skilled musicianship and addictive, foot-stomping hits have led to performances on The Tonight Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, TODAY Show, as well as multiple appearances at the legendary Grand Ole Opry. Perhaps most impressive about Jones’ young career is the list of mentors who have taken her under their wing and on tour, including Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Vince Gill, Jake Owen, Trisha Yearwood, The Eagles, OneRepublic, and most significantly, Jimmy Buffett and the Zac Brown Band.

Jimmy Buffett, notorious for having no openers, brought Caroline out as an opening act and special guest in 2018 and 2019, which was followed by a distribution deal with his label Mailboat Records for the release of her debut album and the release of “Gulf Coast Girl” featuring Buffett, Kenny Chesney, Mac McAnally, and Lukas Nelson. The breezy summer track, which was written specifically for Caroline by Buffett and Mac McAnally, debuted at JazzFest in 2019 and quickly became a hit on SiriusXM’s The Highway, helping the video reach nearly 2 million views to-date.

Caroline first opened for Zac Brown Band on their 2017 tour and, following three consecutive years as their staple opening act, joined the band as a special guest in 2021. Highlights with the group include performing at the 2021 CMA Awards, opening for The Rolling Stones at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and most recently, performing as Dolly Parton's band for her Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame induction. In 2022, Jones reunited with Zac Brown Band as a special guest in their Out In The Middle Tour — performing at iconic venues such as Citi Field, Fenway Park, Hollywood Bowl, and Wrigley Field among other anticipated highlights — while popping up at key festivals and headlining her own shows in support of Antipodes. In 2023, Jones will be back on tour with ZBB for their From The Fire Tour, where they will play over 30 U.S. shows, including a return to Fenway Park, where they have sold out 13 times previously. They will also headline international shows in London, Glasgow and Dublin as part of the C2C: Country to Country festival and at CMC Rocks in Australia, where Caroline will also be performing her own solo set.

Sometimes change is so gradual that it barely registers, and sometimes it’s like slamming into a brick wall. Ask The Cadillac Three: in 2020 the Nashville trio of Jaren Johnston, Neil Mason, and Kelby Ray released a pair of albums in Country Fuzz and Tabasco & Sweet Tea, then entered a season of dramatic upheaval that left them reeling.

“We put out 31 songs in one year. It was like, let’s give people a breather. Let’s give us a breather,” Johnston says. “We were coming off COVID and then my dad passed away. It’s a whole different life now. Talk about having some shit to write about.”

The ACM-nominated group’s sixth studio album, The Years Go Fast, is the product of coming through those trials and emerging on the other side — battle-scarred, a little older, a little wiser, and more willing to be vulnerable. It’s expansive in sound, reflective of the way The Cadillac Three continue to tinker with their swaggering brand of country-rock, but it still sounds like only the three of them can.

“This record does have a lot of growth, a lot of hurt and heartbreak,” says Mason, the group’s drummer. “We are a little more grown up now, but we’re still doing the same thing we were doing in the beginning.”

The Years Go Fast is a statement about big change, but it’s also about the ways friendship, love, and family are anchors when everything starts to fall apart. The group’s three members were high school friends in Nashville and have played in bands together for nearly 20 years. While making the album, Drummer Neil shared an old photo of the three of them loading their gear to social media with a caption that read “the years go fast,” a reference to an older song by the Jane Shermans that they all liked. They ended up repurposing that song, “Young and Hungry,” by adding the story of Jaren and his wife to the verses. The result is a triumphant, exhilarating banger that connects The Cadillac Three of yore to the present. 

The painful loss of Johnston’s father, former Grand Ole Opry drummer Jerry Ray Johnston, looms large over The Years Go Fast. “This Town Is a Ghost” points out the visual reminders that appear everywhere now that he’s gone. The deeply moving “Pistols on the Levee,” which closes the album, recalls memories of visiting Louisiana with his dad when he was younger, and how he’s continuing that tradition with his own child. “’Pistols’ is so cool,” Johnston says. “It hits me so hard because I know my dad would’ve loved that song.”

TC3 fans are used to hearing the band being brash and loud, which they do on tunes like “Hillbilly,” which features Elvie Shane and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor. But now the trio is also finding the power in blending their volume with vulnerability. “You can only do this for so long without showing that side,” Johnston says. “Everybody’s human. Everybody has hurt. Everybody loves somebody.”

Johnston lets his guard down and explores love and partnership in several songs. “Love Like War,” a grungy number that shifts into a crushingly heavy outro, was written late at night after Johnston and his wife, Evyn, had been arguing. “At the time I wrote it, we were going nuts,” Johnston says. “I was a mess, just depressed. It was the middle of COVID and I had a kid in kindergarten. I was having anxiety over that. It was so much. You put two people who’ve been together for 20 years into that blender, you get a fight.” 

There’s intense devotion in the restless rocker “Double Wide Grave,” which was written while processing the death of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Songs like “The Worst,” “The Torch” (which features some fantastic guitar from Charlie Worsham), and “Comin’ Down from You” examine love from different angles. “Comin’ Down from You” was one of the first songs Johnston texted to Mason, who tends to be a tough critic. “I’ve written so many hit songs and sometimes he literally won’t reply when I send them over,” Johnston says. “If you get silence, it’s so defeating.” This time, Mason texted back immediately.

While the changes that shaped The Years Go Fast were often sudden and shocking, the group’s sound has shifted in a slightly more subtle fashion. There are still thunderously heavy half-time breakdowns that nod to their roots, but each album offers a new glimpse into what sounds have captured the group’s attention, whether it’s the organic funk of Tabasco & Sweet Tea or the pronounced metal influences on The Years Go Fast. The fans tend to eat it up, but it’s never done in the name of fan service.

Johnston and Mason frequently write songs for other artists, and Johnson has notched 10 country Number Ones outside the band. He notes that it never works for the band to think about what might work on radio. “Anytime we’ve tried to chase anything, we have ultimately failed,” he says. “It’s the times when we step out and put our hearts on the road so people can drive over them, that’s where we win.”

And that’s what The Years Go Fast ultimately does. Hearts are on the line, bleeding from loss and beating for connection. It’s a blood-and-guts study of love, friendship, and resilience, but one that didn’t come easy.

“It took a lot of effort and a lot of time, but I’m really proud of the way it turned out,” Ray says. Mason agrees. “This is the hardest album we’ve made by far,” he says. 

The Years Go By is a gripping document of that difficult time of change and adversity for The Cadillac Three. Their lives inevitably look a little different now. In reality, they’re changing all the time, like everyone else, but they’ve managed to hang on to that same spark that ignited them back when they were just kids trying to make their way in the music industry.

“We’re three kids from Nashville who have managed to make it and we’re still trying to do it,” Johnston says. “We’re giving our real lives, with a side of fuck you.”

SistaStrings is a dynamic musical duo comprised of sisters Chauntee and Monique Ross, whose exceptional talent and versatility has made a profound impact on the music scene. With their unique blend of classical training, soulful melodies, and contemporary sounds, SistaStrings have established themselves as a formidable force within the music community. The duo was just voted “best instrumentalist” for the Americana Music Associations 2023 honors. 

Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chauntee and Monique discovered their love for music at a young age. Growing up in a musically inclined family, the sisters were exposed to a diverse range of genres and instruments. Chauntee found her calling as a violinist, while Monique developed her skills as a cellist. Together, they embarked on a remarkable journey, fusing their classical training with their deep-rooted love for R&B, hip-hop, and gospel. 

As members of Brandi Carlile’s touring band, SistaStrings have performed at iconic venues such as Madison Square Garden, The Kennedy Center, Newport Folk Festival and Saturday Night Live. They have performed with an eclectic array of artists such as Joni Mitchell, Ed Sheeran, Maggie Rogers, Margo Price, Allison Russell and Jason Isbell. 

SistaStrings are currently writing for their upcoming project, with Brandi Carlie taking the producer reins.