"Lead singer and songwriter for progressive bluegrass band Front Country, Melody Walker is an outspoken force in bluegrass. She routinely calls out the sexism, racism and injustice she sees in the world, a difficult thing to do in an industry still run by many conservative elements." - Paste Magazine

Melody Walker is a GRAMMY-nominated songwriter, producer, performer, and fervent believer that songs can change the world. Best known for her writing with Molly Tuttle, Sierra Ferrell, Della Mae and her own band Front Country, Melody’s post-2020 recalibration has found her finally digging into her home of Nashville, TN, co-writing with her talented neighbors and hosting a weekly writers’ round, Writers’ Kitchen in East Nashville. Her blend of grassroots pop has won her accolades from Merlefest to Telluride and now the GRAMMYs with three songs on Sierra Ferrell’s nominated album Trail of Flowers (including Americana Song of the Year nominee “American Dreaming”) and co-writes on Molly Tuttle’s GRAMMY-winning albums Crooked Tree and City of Gold. Recent years have found Melody releasing her first solo music in a decade, stepping into her own as a songwriter and artist and finding magic in queer collaboration. Whether teaching at music camps or playing Newport Folk Fest and the Kennedy Center with her Grateful Dead drag band BERTHA, Melody is ready to ride whatever cosmic creative waves the universe sends her way.

Interview with Melody on Community and Co-Writing with friends (Country Queer)

Read/listen about Melody’s creative journey and overcoming burnout at WMOT:

Now Solo, Melody Walker serves songs in her Writers’ Kitchen

There’s a new weekly song round in the heart of a music scene not known for them - East Nashville - run by Melody Walker, a powerhouse vocalist and songwriter who’s spent most of the last decade on the road fronting the progressive string band Front Country. Her new Writers' Kitchen on Tuesday nights, is part of a pandemic-inspired overhaul that’s put her in more writing situations, including her four “Grammy adjacent” co-writes with Molly Tuttle on Tuttle’s big 2022 album Crooked Tree… read on

SHORT STORY LONG:

Our capitalist culture often tells us we have to narrow in on our dreams. Niche down, don’t be scattered. Just focus and put your nose to the grindstone and you’ll get somewhere. The question is… is that “somewhere” truly where we want to be?

This is the tough question Melody Walker had to grapple with coming out of 2020, when her band of a decade, Front Country, released their ironically named third album Impossible World and then decided to pursue other projects. Featuring ten Walker originals, most written solo, and produced by GRAMMY-nominated Dan Knobler (Allison Russell, Lake Street Dive, Erin Rae), the album was a departure from the purely acoustic roots of the Bluegrass Billboard-charting, Telluride contest-winning band. Front Country had seen the world, from an earthquake in Alaska to a river trip in Tibet, along with clubs in every major market in the US and several UK tours. But something was missing. The COVID-19 pandemic gave the band the chance to stop grinding and finally look up. What they saw was that they hadn’t built much for themselves outside their mid-tier touring career. Like so many artists after the grief of the pandemic pause, Walker was left facing that vast, empty expanse head-on, and at 35 years old found herself in a full existential crisis. 

A ray of hope glimmered in January of 2021 when Molly Tuttle, an old musical friend from California, asked Walker to write with her for her next album. The two penned ten songs that year, and four of them ended up on Tuttle’s GRAMMY-winning album Crooked Tree, including the title track. After not writing for an entire year, it was a boost of confidence that so many songs came flowing through as soon as the gates were opened. Solo writing was still hard, especially with no sense of where her own career was headed, but co-writing with friends became Walker’s salvation. It was a way to create and connect without having to know her own plans yet. Neighbors and friends Sierra Ferrell and Sarah Potenza became her favorite collaborators and Walker wrote over 100 songs in 2022 alone.  

Amid the deep listening to oneself that comes in the quiet of the winter, Walker had to reckon with a complicated relationship to live performance and touring. She knew she did not want to tour for a living (at least not for a long while), and she knew she was feeling disconnected from community: the songwriting community, and also the queer and activist communities. The opportunity came up for Walker to curate a writers’ night at local East Nashville spot Jane’s Hideaway, and in October of 2022, she started Writers’ Kitchen - a diverse, roots writers’ round that happens every Tuesday night. 

Another unlikely node of connection and exploration began when Walker started creating content on TikTok in early 2022. What started as songwriting tips and music industry real talk turned into musical memes, hot takes on everything from the self-help industry to fancy salt, and the occasional song. In a year, Walker had garnered an audience of over 75k followers, and had her first semi-viral song with “Jesus Was A Drag Queen”, which she wrote with her neighbor Mercy Bell. After a few more folk viral hits (“The Missing Stair”, “Braless”) Melody’s account was suddenly targeted by IP poaching and her account permanently suspended in November of 2023 at a grand total of 116k followers. She is thankful, nonetheless, for the collaborators she met there and the clarifying experience of digital busking.

Walker’s personal project since 2020 has been to rekindle her own joy in music. Something she didn’t even realize she had all but lost along the way. After touring for ten years with the same music, her inner artist had gone on autopilot and she had forgotten how to fly, and there was no instruction manual in sight. The intervening years have been a gentle exploration of sounds and somatics, trying things on and seeing how they feel, removing the pressure and preciousness that can often accompany professional musicianship, and not being afraid to go way outside her comfort zone, allowing room for music to surprise and delight once again.

One such surprise was the Grateful Drag band BERTHA, which came to fruition in protest of the Tennessee anti-drag and anti-trans laws. Walker and her friend Caitlin Doyle (Smooth Hound Smith, Dustbowl Revival) from California had been joking about doing a female-fronted, all-in-drag Grateful Dead cover band. It was all just talk until early 2023 made it clear they needed to make the band a reality and throw a benefit show. Their first ever performance sold out and raised over $4000 for local LGBTQIA+ causes and was written up in Rolling Stone and the San Francisco Chronicle. BERTHA is booking festivals and benefit shows internationally in 2024.

2023 and 2024 sees Walker releasing her first solo music in over a decade, with several singles slated for release toward an EP in the fall. Expect loud collaborations, soulful vibes, and an emphasis on JOY.