Maggie Rose has a very busy summer ahead. The Nashville based artist will be all over the country with a wide range of artists playing a variety of venues from May until the end of the year.
Her full schedule begins with Rose and her pal Molly Tuttle starting their co-headlining tour with an evening at The Heights Theater on Thursday, May 7.
“There’s going to be two entirely different shows every night and without spoiling any surprises, we are obviously going to take advantage of the fact that we are out there together,” says Rose
“We have a busy schedule, but we are going to all these great venues and what Molly has to offer as a musician is just world class. Honestly, she’s a guitar wonder kid but she’s also a very sweet person and getting to spend time with her and her band is going to be a delight.”
The two artists share a friendship and local community in Nashville and though they have played together at various festivals, this will be their first official tour together. Most recently, the two spent time in Washington D.C for the annual GRAMMYS On The Hill, an event where music creators meet with lawmakers to discuss and advocate for issues impacting artists.
“The touring climate and music climate is kind of tough right now, so it was fun to band together with a team that we respect and love and people seem really excited about these shows and this pairing. If we are going to go through all the effort to go and travel around the country, then we should do it with people that we know will help us put on a great show,” says Rose.
A look at the rest of her touring schedule could easily make a great playlist as Rose will be sharing dates with Melissa Etheridge and Wynonna Judd for their upcoming tour, Lake Street Dive, Chris Stapleton and Carrie Underwood. She will start the fall by joining Little Feat at The Grand Ole Opry, a stage she has graced many times since starting her career in Music City at the age of 19.
The wide range of artists she will support and play with is no doubt a testament to her powerful and dynamic voice which could sing any genre beautifully. “I try to just trust it and let it take me all the places that it’s taken me thus far,” says Rose of her impressive vocals.
Her voice has taken her from her hometown of Potomac, Maryland to the center of it all, Nashville. As a teenager Rose played in a Bruce Springsteen tribute band which was garnering some attention and at the urging of record executive Tommy Mottola she decided to leave college for Nashville and give her career a real chance.
“I feel lucky that I was supported by my family to move here when I was a teenager because it was definitely a deviation from what a lot of people from my hometown were doing when I was 19,” says Rose who has now put out four albums.
“I also feel like it’s been hard earned,” adds Rose of her career trajectory. “I feel like there’s so much that remains to be seen and peoples understanding of my music and the path that I’ve taken it on and I’m hoping that it connects with people on a much broader level too.”
Her 2024 No One Gets Out Alive earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album and was a landmark album showing her depth as a songwriter and vocalist.
She now tours with her husband and manager Austin Marshall and her son Graham, a gift in life that she does not take for granted. “It’s really cool because a lot of this music is so much about anticipating his arrival and who I was before he arrived and who I was going to become and it’s kind of cool to be out here living it and sharing this music for the first time with him by my side.”
No One Gets Out Alive also helped Rose remind audiences that not all music coming from Nashville has to fit inside a little box checked off only for country music, an understanding that Rose agrees needs recalibrating. With her upcoming album, Half Moon, Rose is once again filling the tracks with the wide range of influences that she formed her artistic style.
“I think this is a little bit more uptown,” describes Rose of Half Moon, due out August 14. “Perhaps there’s timelessness to the chordal arrangements and I think it’s a little more wistful and that probably has a lot to do with what I was going through at the time. It was a very enchanted time where I was just so overwhelmed with love and emotion. I feel like there’s a sort of romance to some of these songs that have maybe led me to a little bit of a sonic departure.”
Rose credits her collaborators and producers Lawrence Rothman and Daniel Tashian for helping her channel the sound she chased and her love for artists like Dusty Springfield and Petula Clark. Her first single from the album “Red Shoes” sets the tone for the album and this chapter in Rose’s life where she invites everyone to celebrate themselves and the moment.
“It is a good time,” agrees Rose. “There are some very light and ebullient songs on the record and there are some more introspective, darker songs and that adds to the duality of the music but I wanted to start with a happier tone. Also, that was me writing a song about maintaining that carefree person that is within me even after going through this big transformation,” she says.
“I’m out on the road playing these songs now after having worked on this record for a year and I realize that times are not the easiest for everybody but this is a song that hopefully allows us to access that joy so it’s for everybody to have fun and remember whatever our red shoes are we can get to that place.”
Rose has been a frequent performer at The Grand Ole Opry since 2012. a relationship she holds dear.
“I feel like I’m just a small part of an institution that’s been sustained for a long time, like a 100 years, because they keep analyzing what is out there and mining the best of what Nashville has to offer. I think that they are always trying to cast a wider and wider net of what they bring to that stage so I feel like I’m helping push the boundaries of what you would typically expect to hear from the Opry and I’m trying to do that in a lot of the places that I’m in.”
Maggie Rose will perform with Molly Tuttle on Thursday, May 8, 8 p.m. at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th. For more information visit Heightstheater.com. $45.
