Tenille Townes has arrived: meet the Canadian voice shaping the future of country music

2020 was going to be a packed year for Tenille Townes. 

Fresh off a personal record number of wins at the 2019 Canadian Country Music Awards (four, including female artist of the year), the Alberta-born, Nashville-based country artist was up for songwriter and breakthrough artist at this year's Junos, in the midst of an international tour that included a mix of solo dates and shows supporting both Alan Jackson and Keith Urban, and looking to release her long-awaited full-length album, The Lemonade Stand, in the spring.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit mid-March, Townes, along with the rest of the music industry, had to readjust.

"We were in Amsterdam for the C2C [Country to Country] Festival and were supposed to fly to London the following morning to continue the tour, and ended up urgently flying back home instead!" says Townes, from her Nashville home. "It was such a strange and stressful time to be so far from home, and the regulations of meet and greets cancelled and measures being taken even while we were there was hard."

With the tour and Junos postponed, Townes' leadup to her upcoming album is shaping up to be much quieter than expected, though not entirely silent. She released a collaborative, at-home performance video of Bill Withers' "Lean on Me" — just a handful of days before the news of the late singer's death came out — and recently released another single, "The Most Beautiful Things." She's also been participating in plenty of live streams, including Stronger Together and the upcoming episode of the Junos 365 Songwriters' Circle. 

"It's really hard to not be on the road doing the thing that I love the most," Townes says, of her isolation time in her Nashville home. "I really haven't been home for this long, in a very long time, but I'm sure grateful for music and the way it still wraps its arms around us in times like these. Thankful for technology, and the ability to still share songs, and be in a space of writing. I haven't been in a space to really dig in and write songs in a long time and I'm grateful for that right now."

Townes is no stranger to digging in to do the work. Having released her debut album in 2011 at the age of 17, the singer-songwriter has been steadily working at her craft for more than a decade — the result of which you can hear on her most recent EPs, 2018's Living Room Worktapes and 2020's Road to the Lemonade Stand.

I've seen a lot of singer-songwriters come and go, but there's something different about Tenille.-Daniel Tashian, co-producer of Kacey Musgraves' Grammy-winning 2018 album, Golden Hour.

The former, a beautifully stripped-down version of four of her songs ("Jersey on the Wall (I'm Just Asking)," "Somebody's Daughter," "White Horse" and "Where You Are") crafted with Daniel Tashian, co-producer of Kacey Musgraves' Grammy-winning 2018 album, Golden Hour, sits in stark contrast to the latter, a rocker of a record produced by Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Little Big Band) and featuring a full band — and a much bigger sound. 

"I've seen a lot of singer-songwriters come and go, but there's something different about Tenille in the sense that she just doesn't want to do the same thing that everyone else does," says Tashian, from his Nashville home. "I've seen a lot of people feel like, 'Well, if I sort of pony up on this sound that seems to be popular right now, I might have a chance of breaking through,' but she's always had this kind of conviction about being a little different." Tashian compares Townes' vocal range to the likes of Stevie Nicks and Patty Gryphon, and describes her as a gifted guitar player: "Her facility on the guitar is uncommon."

The 2018 and 2020 EPs publicly tracked Townes' evolution, a set of measured introductions to a woman leading the sound of country music on both sides of the Canadian–American border — and with her first major label full-length set for release June 26, Townes is only getting started.

'Shania can I please sing with you?' 

The singer from Grande Prairie, Alta., got her first guitar as a gift from her grandparents when she was 14, which is when Townes says she "started putting chords together with some things in my journals and writing songs shortly after that." But the performance bug hit her much earlier than her mid-teens, when Townes attended a Shania Twain concert at the age of nine.

"I made a sign that said, 'Shania can I please sing with you?' with silver glitter on neon orange poster board and my mom had glue-gunned me a costume right before we left the house that kind of looked like [Twain's] Miami concert DVD that I'd watched over and over," says Townes. 

The sign worked, and Twain pulled Townes up onstage to sing with her. "That really lit quite a fire in me," she says, laughing.

"With my mom, there was a lot of Shania Twain and also Room With a View [by] Carolyn Dawn Johnson," says Townes, describing her early days singing in the car with her family. "I obsessed over that record top to bottom and followed along to every one of those words. And I feel like [Johnson's] record was one of the first ones that I really noticed songwriting credits. And the fact that she was the writer on all of those songs. And that kind of made me go, huh, that's so cool. You can tell stories and also be the one who sings them." (Johnson is also Grande Prairie-born.)

Townes released "Home Now," her first single, at 15, an acoustic track about a daughter missing her father, a soldier posted in Afghanistan. In retrospect, the song is a clear indication of what was to come: Townes' powerful voice singing from a place of understanding, of an experience that she may not have lived but can fully embody — an empathetic, thoughtful storyteller. Townes released two albums, Real (2011) and Light (2013), while still based in Canada, making frequent songwriting trips to both Calgary and Peace River, Alta., while in high school, and scoring a nomination for female artist of the year at the 2011 Canadian Country Music Association Awards.

The fact that [Carolyn Dawn Johnson] was the writer on all of those songs. And that kind of made me go, huh, that's so cool. You can tell stories and also be the one who sings them.​​​- Tenille Townes

When Townes graduated from high school, she put together a pitch for her parents to convince them that she wasn't going to college — and was instead going to "hit the road and do music." 

It turns out, her parents weren't a hard sell — "they're both very dedicated dreamers," says Townes — and she spent 32 weeks on the road in a motor home for her Play it Forward tour, getting fuel and grocery cards from local stores to fund the trip. The tour saw Townes visit middle and high schools across Canada "with a music program that was recognising kids in each of these schools that were doing really cool things and giving them an honorarium to continue that 'play it forward' spirit," she explains.

While the trip was formative for many reasons, it's also how Townes heard the story of the late Danielle Park, which formed the backbone of Townes' hit single "Jersey on the Wall (I'm Just Asking)." Park, a star basketball player at Grand Manan Community School in New Brunswick, died in a car accident the month after she graduated as valedictorian. A year after her first visit to the school, Townes surprised the students with a visit for their commencement and saw Park's jersey hanging on the wall. The experience led her to a song that starts with a line inspired by Park's story — "Twenty-seven took the Tigers/ to the finals that year," Townes sings — and moves to bigger themes of faith and death. 

"It really kind of put me in this place of spinning in more and more of those questions," says Townes, of her questions for God, which she says she found healing. "It's been overwhelming."

The song has since reached No. 1 on country radio charts in Canada according to Mediabase Canada, and coupled with "Somebody's Daughter," a compassionate song about homelessness, it has made Townes the only woman to have two No. 1 singles since Mediabase started monitoring in Canada in 2004. 

But for Townes, it isn't about the numbers — it's about the people.

"The part that has been the most special to me is knowing that all of these people in their different places of this grace journey are just really not alone," she says. "And you know, that sort of feeling would not happen without people believing in the song and letting it be heard." 

'She knows who she is, and she demands to be that and only that.​- Gordie Sampson 

"She walked in with that idea and concept and offered it in the room," says Gordie Sampson, who co-wrote "Jersey on the Wall" with Townes and Tina Parol. ("Gordie's always been a hero of mine," says Townes.) Sampson, a Grammy-winning writer from Big Pond, N.S. — who's written for Faith Hill, Miranda Lambert and LeAnn Rimes — first connected with Townes to co-write for her 2013 single "Dear Heart." But "Jersey on the Wall" was the first song he worked on for Townes' "Nashville record," as he calls the upcoming The Lemonade Stand. 

"She knows who she is, and she demands to be that and only that," says Sampson. "It's actually just so unusual to see somebody that is not willing to bend to get where they need to go. You know what I mean? I think Tenille has a path and she sticks to it. Her songs are very real. She writes about what she wants to write about and she chooses concepts that are very real ... I mean, there's no one like her, but she's kind of a maverick like that — where she demands to be herself and will not be swayed."

'I found myself surrounded by people who said yes and believed'

Townes had been making songwriting trips to Nashville for a few years by the time she did her cross-Canada tour, and when she wrapped it in 2013, the city came calling for good.

"I packed up my little Tacoma truck and my dad helped me make the drive. We drove for 45 hours to Nashville and he helped me set up my little rental spot and it was kind of like, 'Good luck kid' [laughs]. I was thinking, I hope this works out so I don't have to drive 45 hours home," she adds, laughing again.

Townes spent a lot of time by herself, "really writing songs and digging into what I wanted to say or stand for," she says, and found a new part of her voice. Singing rounds at the Bluebird Café and the Listening Room put her in touch with other singers and writers, and it took time to find her footing.

"I had discouraging moments at the beginning of something new," says Townes, of her early days in Nashville. "And I'm really grateful that following those discouraging moments, were always so to speak little signs like, 'Kay, keep holding on,' or somebody would call me or email me back or set up a new write or I'd take a meeting and they'd say, 'We can't help you yet, but please keep going.'" 

It was a lot of just continuing to show up.- Tenille Townes

Five years after her Nashville move, Townes found the people who believed in her: publishing house Big Yellow Dog Music, where Townes worked with Tashian, and both Sony Music Nashville and Columbia Nashville, on which she'll release The Lemonade Stand, produced by Jay Joyce and featuring all the tracks from her Road to the Lemonade Stand, as well as "The Most Beautiful Things" and five unreleased songs. 

"It was such an overwhelming feeling to go with the village of people that I'd really been hoping for," she says. "I'm grateful that they heard something in those demos and in the songs and things kind of kept rolling from there. It was a lot of just continuing to show up."

Tashian, who's been working with Yellow Dog for 12 years, has similarly fond feelings.

"I would see her truck pull into my driveway and she would just come in and be so full of great positive energy and so free with her creativity that it put me at ease," he says. "Because, you know, you think with a singer like that, this is a huge opportunity. I don't want to mess this up. And you can get a little bit nervous, almost. But she just put me at ease."

Townes' work has been nonstop since. "Somebody's Daughter" was her first single for Columbia Nashville, hitting No. 1 on the Canadian Country chart and cracking the top 30 of Billboard's Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts. Townes opened for Miranda Lambert and Little Big Town on their joint 2018 dates, which led to Townes' spot in Lambert's Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars tour in fall 2019, with Maren Morris, Elle King, Pistol Annies, Ashley McBryde and Caylee Hammack. The Pink Guitars tour kicked off with a collaboration track, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," which was nominated for a 2020 Academy of Country Music Award. (Townes also nabbed a nomination for new female artist of the year, though the awards have been postponed until September.)

"That was such a dream, honestly, and still, like how did that actually happen in real life?" says Townes. "Miranda Lambert is really quite an incredible human and just a cheerleader of all of us, and very genuine in the way that she is. It means a lot to have her to turn to on this whole ride."

While Townes benefits from country music's storied mentors, she pays it forward her own way: through charity work she's been doing for Big Hearts for Big Kids, which she founded when she was 15 years old. The money raised from the annual concert fundraiser Townes hosts goes to Sunrise House, an emergency youth shelter in Grande Prairie. In the event's 10th year, it raised $415,000 — totalling more than $1.9 million in donations over a decade.

"She's had it from a young age," says Sampson, of Towne's drive. "I played the 10th anniversary of the charity she does in her hometown, and that was just an incredible experience. Some writers from here in Nashville flew up to Grande Prairie … and we got to tour the home that she helped build for distressed teens that either temporarily or permanently have no place to live. And it was really something.

"I mean, she is extremely motivated, extremely driven, and she's got an amazing heart."