Country Music Almanac 2023: Artists to Watch

There’s a veritable deluge of rising country talent that deserves your attention. To help you keep up, we’ve picked out nine artists who are coming into 2023 with excellent songs, outstanding voices and powerful perspectives to share.

Adeem the Artist

White privilege isn’t exactly frequently discussed in country music, especially considering that it’s one of the key concepts being exploited by right-wing politicians across the nation. Yet the quite unusual, very arresting and always-worth-hearing Adeem the Artist takes white privilege (among other topics) by the horns on their new LP White Trash Revelry. The East Tennessee singer-songwriter, who proudly embraces being nonbinary and pansexual, offers a view of Southern life — and by extension, American identity — that’s a conservative Republican’s musical nightmare. But it would be wrong to view either them or their music through a strictly political lens. The album’s also a resolutely country work with heartfelt, deep appreciation for the rhythms and sensibility of all the genres that routinely come together in the music of great Southern artists. Touting an outspokenly liberal artist bold enough to mix vintage Jimmie Rodgers songs with open advocacy for Black Lives Matter as an emerging country breakout star might be wishful thinking. But if the country audience in 2023 is as open as you might hope, then Adeem the Artist will enjoy a surge in popularity to match their critical acclaim. RON WYNN

Nicky Diamonds 

Given Nicky Diamonds’ unearthly voice and gift for groove, it’s no wonder he stole the show during The Black Opry Revue at AmericanaFest. The Dallas-born troubadour — whose mystique gets a little more edge owing to his birthday of Oct. 13 — says he earned his nickname while working in Hawaii. He rose to prominence as one-half of Lonely Horse, a blues duo from San Antonio that earned acclaim for its ghostly minimalism. Striking out on his own now, Diamonds is ready to explore country music and Americana. He’ll play at Willie Nelson’s SXSW-adjacent Luck Reunion, and he’s prepping more music for 2023. If the two songs he’s released so far — the melancholy acoustic “Met Her in Bed” and the plangent electric “Gone Fish’n (Alright)” — are any indication, Diamonds will surely shine this year. RACHEL CHOLST 

Nikki Morgan

What I love about Nikki Morgan is that her songs feel so intensely honest. The North Carolina native is a budding master of showing and not telling. You don’t get the sense that Morgan is forcing anything on you: She’s just telling the truth, whether you’re there to listen or leave. Start with “Love Save Me,”  from 2020’s 30 Something, on which she sings: “And I go to church on Sunday morning / Crying, ‘Lordy, help me please!’ / But then I swear I heard him tell me / ‘Get the fuck up off your knees.’ ” You know what you’re getting into from there. AMANDA HAGGARD

Jake Blount

Musical polymath Jake Blount — a musicologist who is also a composer, singer-songwriter and a stringed-instrument player whose banjo skills won the Steve Martin Prize — has been known for great work that’s involved with the past. His 2022 album The New Faith draws from the contributions of Black, Indigenous and other people of color who’ve been written out of the history of roots music, which Blount has been participating in restoring. But he also uses techniques from hip-hop and other traditions to tell a story about human nature and surviving a (very plausible) disastrous future. It’s powerful, playful, old and new at once. And the scope of his imagination is excitingly Prince-esque — that is to say, limitless. STEPHEN TRAGESER

Jessye DeSilva

Jessye DeSilva comes at country from the perspective of ’70s rock on 2022’s Landscapes, which features a well-crafted spin on early Steely Dan titled “Devil in New Jersey.”  The tune gathers up various tropes about the beauty and terror of the Garden State, and you have to be impressed by this couplet: “You poisoned your macaroni salad / Just giving gossip in a scripture verse.” The arrangements on Landscapes sometimes veer into folk-rock territory, but DeSilva’s mild tenor voice and perfectly executed Steely Dan-meets-Carole King chord structures support lyrics that express post-pandemic anxiety. Landscapes suggests DeSilva could inject new life into a genre that could definitely use a little more pretzel logic. EDD HURT

The Kentucky Gentlemen

Country duo The Kentucky Gentlemen is made up of twin brothers Derek and Brandon Campbell (have we finally found a good bro country?) who are originally from Central Kentucky. They’ve been in Nashville for about 10 years building up their mix of ’90s country, pop and R&B, which feels a bit like listening to an amalgam of several of my favorite tunes from my childhood. “Lose My Boots”  from The Kentucky Gentlemen: Vol. 1 is something I absolutely would’ve known all the words to at too early of an age. And as a plus, they wear A LOT of unbuttoned silk shirts. AMANDA HAGGARD

O.N.E. the Duo

It’s no surprise that O.N.E. the Duo is part of a genre with a tradition of insightful storytelling, though you might have expected that genre to be hip-hop: You’ve heard Tekitha performing with the Wu-Tang Clan, and Prana Supreme is Tekitha and RZA’s child. The mother-daughter pair made their way to Music City right before the pandemic, and have been building up a small catalog of pop-country singles like last summer’s “Stuck in the Middle.” The duo’s harmonies are stunning, but the subtlety of the ways they play off of each other — especially evident in the covers you’ll find on their YouTube channel — add layers of storytelling power to their work. STEPHEN TRAGESER

Bailey Zimmerman

Bailey Zimmerman is in his early 20s, but the Illinois native sounds like he’s seen some shit — at least when it comes to love. Injecting moody, introspective hard rock into the country mainstream, he sings with a melodic vocal growl and writes with shades of the alternative ’90s. It’s an angsty edge not found in Nashville’s arena-rock acolytes, and it seems to hold millennial appeal. Last year alone, “Fall in Love” was certified platinum by the RIAA and was one of three songs he landed simultaneously on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart — a first for a new artist, and on a track with a rare-for-mainstream “better off alone” theme. Then, “Rock and a Hard Place,” a song of conflicting feelings, earned another platinum plaque, and “Where It Ends” released the romantic frustration all with a hint of not-so-subdued darkness. Zimmerman has racked up some 700 million streams in just two years, and his new “Get to Gettin’ Gone” continues the story. CHRIS PARTON

The Shootouts

The Shootouts are traditionalists, but that doesn’t make them conservative, nor does it mean they move slowly. The Akron, Ohio, quartet has been churning out old-school country and honky-tonk at a rapid clip. Coming in February, Stampede will be the group’s third album in five years. Lead singer Ryan Humbert doesn’t just write music; he also shares his love for all things Americana on his 24/7 digital station The Americana Roundup. That passion is evident in the forthcoming release, which was produced by Asleep at the Wheel’s founder Ray Benson. On Stampede, The Shootouts are joined by the aforementioned legends of Western swing, as well as Marty Stuart, Buddy Miller, Raul Malo and Jim Lauderdale. Look — these heavy hitters don’t know anything you don’t. While you wait for the new release, take a dip into the band’s delightful discography and see how The Shootouts have been winning honky-tonk hearts the world over. RACHEL CHOLST

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Country Music Almanac 2023

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