The Current present

Margo Price

with Meels

Doors: 7:00pm | Performance: 8:00 p.m. | 18+

INFORMATION | TICKETS

Margo Price

Nearly a decade ago, Margo Price turned Nashville on its head with her breakthrough, beloved debut solo album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. Released in the throes of bro-country and before pop stars were crossing over into the genre left and right, it showcased an artist completely unafraid to double down not only on herself, but what she’d always loved: classic country songs written from the intellect and the gut, hell-bent on truth-telling and both timeless and urgent all at once. Respected by her peers, praised by critics and beloved by her fans, Price created a lane where independent-minded, insurgent country music can exist and thrive alongside the mainstream, and became an ardent fighter for her beliefs in a genre where the norm is to shut up and sing. A trailblazer and a champion for the craft, Price redefined what it meant to be a modern country artist.

And now she’s back with an exquisite, truly timeless album that reconnects with her roots and pays tribute to the art of the country song, inspired in part by the legends whom she now calls colleagues and friends. Hard Headed Woman is both a look forward and a look back: a way to march forward while staying true to yourself when the path of less resistance is right there in front of us, and short cuts are around every corner. And a way to look back when we need to trim what is no longer working, and to stay connected with where we’re from. It is a promise and a manifesto, a love song to both a city and a genre, and a defiant cry for individuality.

In creating Hard Headed Woman, Price brought all of her power as one of  our most beloved and respected songwriters to craft a deep exploration of love and America in a time of unprecedented uncertainty. Featuring appearances from Tyler Childers, co-writes with Rodney Crowell and a Waylon Jennings song that his widow, Jessi Colter, urged her to sing, it is country music as only Price can make it: free of rules, cherishing tradition, hard headed to the core but with a delicate, beating heart.

Since releasing Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, Price has barely slowed down. She’s made four records, played Saturday Night Live, been nominated for a Grammy, toured the world alongside artists like Chris Stapleton and Willie Nelson, released a lauded memoir (Maybe We’ll Make It, due on paperback September 2), became an in-demand producer and was appointed as the first female board member of Nelson’s Farm Aid. And she’s been fearless when it came to genre, venturing into psychedelic rock on her most recent, Jonathan Wilson-produced record, Strays. It would have been easiest to just stay that course, and keep running. But Price doesn’t follow success or comfort. She follows the art.

It took a whole lot of hard work and honesty with herself and others to get there, but that’s never stopped Price before.  “I made the decision that I had to rebuild everything from the ground up,” Price says. “There’s all this pressure to be pumping out content, and I felt the opposite in the way I wanted to approach this record and my life in general.”

Price had also established herself as one of the most passionate, vocal artists in country music and beyond when it came to standing up for political and personal causes, from the presidential election, to abortion to gun control: happily hard headed when it came to the fight for equality and justice, especially for the working class and underserved in our society. Price has always brilliantly woven her activism into her songs, but her role as a spokesperson had started to overtake, on occasion, her role as a songwriter. She wanted to focus on using her written word to deliver the most potent punch of all.

“I always hope to do like Johnny Cash did,” Price says, “which is speak up for the common man and woman. But there have been so many threats and anger and vitriol over the years, when I am only coming from a place of love.”

Price realized she just needed a break from everything outside of the bubble of family life and her art. She started spending more time at home, writing songs alone and with her husband, Jeremey Ivey. She started popping up in the dive bars and tiny venues around Nashville where she got her start, sometimes just to play a country cover or two or dance with the crowd. She refused guidance to write for pop stars or compromise her values for a quick buck. Most of all, she turned the emphasis in her music back to songwriting, exactly where she began.

“So much of Strays was leaning into this psychedelic, textural territory,” says Price. The music lent itself to vibrant, heavy stage jams, with Price often hopping behind the drumkit and bruising her thigh from a tambourine beat. She found herself longing for the days when it was just her and her guitar, playing at an East Nashville dive bar. “I always knew,” she adds, “I would come back to this more rooted sound.”

Hard Headed Woman is rooted to its core. Rooted in Price’s history and struggle to make it as a musician for so many years in a town that prizes uniformity and the bottom line, rooted in the country and folk sounds that have become her signature, rooted in the simplicity of a few key collaborators instead of songs-by-committee. At the heart of Price’s work is her creative partnership with Ivey, with whom she describes as having a “soul connection.” “I'm a songwriter,” Price says. “I'm not somebody who goes out and needs five people to craft a song, and then tack my name on it. That’s never been my style. I have something to say.”

Meels

Meels discovered her voice among the towering redwoods of her native California. Her music, a fusion of small-town charm and the grandeur of nature, traces her journey from the woods to NYU’s Clive Davis Institute in New York City back to Mill Valley, where she now resides with her dachshund, Baltimore. Rooted in nostalgia, nature, and intricate human connections, Meels’ songwriting transforms melodies into stories and confessions. Her sound blends the warmth of ’60s and ’70s folk with timeless Americana and classic country influences.