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ASHLAND CRAFT

Sunday January 8, 2023

@ Live Oak in Nashville, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

In the ever changing, here today gone tomorrow landscape that is the music industry in Nashville, celebrating a 2-year run as one of the city’s top-notch, must-see songwriter event’s is quite the accomplishment.

And that’s exactly what Raised Rowdy’s ‘Rowdy on the Row’ did this past Sunday night.

A shoulder-to-shoulder crowd filled Live Oak, the Demonbreun Hill hotspot, to hear some of the best emerging songwriting/artist talents over 4 rounds of music which featured the likes of Ella Langley, Josh Kiser, Shelby Ray, and more.

The very impressive 3rd round featured the incredible Ashland Craft playing alongside Jordan Fletcher, Jobe Fortner, and Ryan Nelson.

Craft, the South Carolina native who many will recognize from her season 13 run on the popular NBC program The Voice, has spent the better part of this past year checking off bucket list achievements, including supporting her debut album Travellin’ Kind by opening for the Zac Brown Band.

With a few weeks break in her normally hectic touring schedule, Craft got to spend a little bit of time back home in Nashville during the holiday season before she hits the road again in just a few weeks with Ian Munsick, and while she was in town, she gifted the “rowdy” crowd with a sampling of her newest material; also offering a glimpse into the very near future with what is most likely going to be her next single.

“How we feeling out there y’all?” asked Craft with a smile as she confessed that she hadn’t done a round in a while, but was happy to be back on stage with such a solid lineup of writers before she played “Country or Nothing,” injecting the night with the blues driven, gritty country that’s become her signature feel as she brought us through a list of the purely country attributes that you’ll need to carry within you if you wanna be with her - say ma’am to her mama, shake hands firmly with her daddy, love her strongly like a really man oughta, etc. 

After someone in the crowd delivered a beer to the stage for her, Craft excitedly lifted it up and toasted everyone before playing “Right Damn Now,” a song which she said was inspired by the dive bar scene that she came from, leaning into its brooding, honky-tonk swampiness through the verses to fuel her gravelly tilted voice, combining each aspect together to raise up the attitude and swagger of the blue-collar, PBR swirled anthem as she perfectly captured the vibe of an anywhere USA local dive.

However, as solid as both of her previously played new songs are, when she closed her part of the round with “Danced with the Devil,” the song she said would most likely be her next single, she quieted the otherwise rowdy crowd and pulled them into each regret-filled line and pain-turning word.

‘I’ve really been diving into songwriting over the past year and trying to write more stories like those that make country music what it is,” told Craft. “And I love writing about the moments in life that are not always perfect,” she confessed as the softer paced song radiated from stage with subtlety, giving her the proper amount of space to use her voice in a guilt-filled way as sang us through confused wondering during the aftermath of a one-night stand that left her struggling with the decision the morning after as she pondered if it crossed the line into sin.

Look for Ashland Craft on tour with Ian Munsick starting January 20, 2023 in New Braunfels, TX at Gruene Hall.

FULL SET LIST

1) Country or Nothing

2) Right Damn Now

3) Danced with the Devil

 

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