the beat
HAIR AND MAKEUP BY TARRYN FELDMANCHART
BREAKER
DISCOVERING NEW TALENT SINCE 1894(!)
Pearce photographed
Au g. 1 5 a t O l d G l o r y
in Nashville. For an
exclusive video of
Pearce discussing her
country roots, go to
Billboard.com.No.
17
on Billboard
’s
Hot Country Songs
chart34 BILLBOARD | SEPTEMBER 2, 2017CARLY PEARCE
The Nashville singer-songwriter finally
breaks big with the hit no one believed in
BY ELIAS LEIGHT
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ERIC RYAN ANDERSON
At first, bluegrass
was her thing
Kentucky, where
Pearce grew up,
is an epicenter for
bluegrass as well
as country, so she
became fluent in
both at a young
age. “I got asked
to join a bluegrass
group at [age] 11,”
says Pearce, 27.
“Bluegrass musicians
are unbelievable, so
that’s how I learnt
to sing harmony. I
played an all-boys
prison, every tent
revival you could
think of, churches,
bars — they would
sneak me in.”She earned her
stripes working at
Dollywood
Pearce traded high
school for home
schooling when she
was 16 so she could
work at the Dolly
Parton-owned theme
park. “I did six shows
a day, five days a
week,” she recalls.
“We did everything
from June Carter andThe Carter Family to
Patsy Cline to Taylor
Swift. It was an
intense crash course
on what was to come
in Nashville.”
Labels passed on
her hit single “Every
Little Thing”
“I really didn’t think
it would be the song
that helped to break
me in the industry —
especially not in the
summer,” she says of
her debut smash. “I
had plenty of people
pass on ‘Every Little
Thing.’ ” The one
that didn’t was Big
Machine, Swift’s
label, which signed
Pearce in January.
Seven months later,
the song cracked the
Hot 100.
She swings two
states
It’s rare for singers to
move easily between
the contrasting
Nashville and Texas
country scenes, but
Pearce was willing
to duet with Texas’
Josh Abbott on
“Wasn’t That
Drunk” in 2016. It
paid off: The single
gained enough
Texas regional radio
momentum that it
eventually dented the
top 40 on Billboard’s
Country Airplay chart.
“When I started out,
[Abbott] was like, ‘Do
not tell people you are
from Nashville,’ ” says
Pearce. “But they
embraced me.”