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Tenille Townes Captures The Complexities Of The Heartland With Passion And Empathy

Tenille Townes
Jessica Steddom
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Courtesy of the artist
Tenille Townes

From Joni Mitchell to k.d. lang, there's something about the flat, wind-tossed landscape of Midwestern Canada that produces great singer-songwriters. The 25-year-old Tenille Townes grew up on that chilly land, in the small city of Grande Prairie, on the migration path of the trumpeter swan.

Townes started making music as a teenager and rose in Canada's flourishing country scene before moving to Nashville at 19. Like her role models Bruce Springsteenand Lori McKenna, Townes brings passion and empathy to songs that capture the complexities of the heartland. With her distinctive, raspy voice and hard-driving guitar style, Townes has the heart of a rocker. She's part of a generation of young country artists refreshing the genre by pushing its boundaries. Songs like "Somebody's Daughter," which Townes wrote after seeing a young homeless woman standing with a sign at the entrance to Nashville's I-24, uncover the untold stories of a North America where good people struggle and the young face the same problems their parents faced, plus a whole raft of new ones.

Townes isn't simply a protest singer, though. She can kick out the jams on a love song, too. Her spark has already gained her fervent followers in Nashville and beyond, where her debut album is one of the most anticipated releases of 2019.

Townes stopped by Sound Stage Studios in Nashville to chat and perform some of her songs. Hear it all in the player.

Copyright 2019 XPN

Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.
World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).