Review: Obsessed by Morgan Wade. Drive-By Truckers at the DNC.

A fierce singer-songwriter carves space in country's mainstream. Southern rock vets rewind a classic. Sierra Ferrell does a Tiny Desk Concert.

Photo by Matthew Berinato

Morgan Wade is the kind of country artist you’d expect to have zero patience for Nashville bullshit. She seems the sort who’d sign with an indie label, make impressively scrappy records, and keep a side hustle selling songs to chart-chasers without chasing them herself.

But that’s not quite how things played out. And it’s part of why she’s compelling, in the way Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, and Ashley McBryde are — ambitious artists who color outside the lines and carve space in the mainstream for themselves and (importantly) the folks who feel them. These musicians want to get paid, sure. But it’s also clear they don’t want the big-tent country music they grew up with to suck, to cede that platform to hucksters and hacks. Instead, they push out the walls of that tent, making it bigger and better. (Draw parallels to politics here if you like.)