Opry NextStage Announces 2nd Annual "NextStage: Live In Concert" On Nov. 20; Names Nate Smith Opry NextStage Artist

OPRY NEXTSTAGE ANNOUNCES SECOND ANNUAL
"NEXTSTAGE LIVE IN CONCERT" HOSTED BY PRISCILLA BLOCK
ON NOV. 20 AT THE GRAND OLE OPRY HOUSE

Nate Smith Rounds Out NextStage Class of 2022 and Joins Lineup With BRELAND,
Restless Road, Elvie Shane, Conner Smith and 2021 NextStage Alumnae
Block and Hailey Whitters

Tickets For Sunday, Nov. 20 Event On-Sale Friday, Oct. 14

The Grand Ole Opry has announced its second annual Opry NextStage Live In Concert, presented by Geico, that showcases some of country music’s top rising stars who have been a part of the NextStage artist discovery program. The Opry has also announced the latest and final member of the NextStage Class of 2022, viral country star, Nate Smith.

Smith will take the stage alongside other 2022 NextStage artists BRELAND, Restless Road, Elvie Shane and Conner Smith with special performances by NextStage alumnae Hailey Whitters and Priscilla Block, who will host the event. NextStage Live In Concert takes place on Sunday, Nov. 20 at the Grand Ole Opry House. Tickets are available for sale at Opry.com on Friday, Oct. 14.

On being named the Opry NextStage artist of November and being part of the show, Smith remarks “I am thrilled and honored to be the Opry’s NextStage artist for November. They have spotlighted so many artists that I admire, and I can’t wait to share a stage with them next month! There’s nothing like the Grand Ole Opry and it means the world to me to have their support.”

California native and Arista Nashville/Sony Music Nashville artist, Nate Smith, is carving his own path onto the country music genre. Smith made heads turn in 2020 when his song “Wildfire” went viral on TikTok. This year the singer-songwriter has recently garnered attention on Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart while his newest single “Whiskey On You” is climbing the country radio charts, and currently sits at No. 11 on Billboard’s coveted Hot Country Songs chart. Listen to “Whiskey On You” HERE.

Throughout the year, Opry Entertainment works closely with Opry NextStage artists by investing in career development and providing opportunities for live performances, strategic marketing support and short-form documentary-style storytelling created by Opry Entertainment’s award-winning content team.

For more information on Opry NextStage, visit opry.com/nextstage.

About Opry NextStage
Developed by Opry Entertainment Group in 2019, Opry NextStage, presented by Geico, invests in the discovery of new artists and highlights one up-and-coming artist per month with featured original content, an Opry performance and support across the brand’s platforms, which include the Opry, Ryman Auditorium, WSM Radio, Ole Red and Circle Network. With a pulse on what is next in the Country music format and a deep commitment to supporting burgeoning talent, NextStage has cemented a strong track record in just three short years. The two previous NextStage classes have featured artists such as Parker McCollum, Lainey Wilson, Riley Green and Tenille Townes who all went on to earn ACM New Male and Female Artist of the Year trophies following their Opry NextStage debuts.

About the Grand Ole Opry
The Grand Ole Opry presents the best in country music live every week from Nashville, Tenn. The Opry can be heard at opry.com and wsmonline.com, Opry and WSM mobile apps, SiriusXM, and its flagship home, 650 AM-WSM. The Grand Ole Opry is owned by Ryman Hospitality Properties (NYSE:RHP). For more information, visit opry.com.

About Nate Smith
Featuring a mix of gritty backwoods soul, rock ‘n’ roll swagger and velvet-thunder vocals, Nate Smith is Sony Music Nashville’s latest signing whose personal journey inspired him to be a beacon of country-music hope, an inspirational mission he puts front-and-center. A California native, former worship leader, and lifelong music lover, Smith approaches that mission with a background as eclectic as it gets. Learning guitar at 13, Garth Brooks, Elvis Presley and Bob Seger were among those informing his powerful, fire-from-within vocals, while Michael Jackson made him crave the spotlight and Nirvana gave his sound a jagged edge. He first chased his neon dreams to Nashville in his early 20s – but it didn’t stick. The disheartened Smith returned home and thought he was “100-percent done” with his artistic journey…until a crucible of change burned away the past.

In 2018, Smith lost everything he owned in the devastating Camp Fire which tore through Paradise, California, now known as the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history. Although his family was safe, he struggled to cope and turned back to music, hoping that it would help comfort himself and others. Help it did, inspiring a month-long road trip across the U.S. to Music City, writing music and playing dive bars along the way. Soon after his arrival to Nashville, Nate released his biggest song to date, “Wildfire,” and landed a publishing deal with Sony ATV. Since then, he’s released new music including “Sleeve” and “Under My Skin,” which has amassed over 60 million on-demand streams to date. The singer was named a Spotify Hot Country Artist to Watch for 2021 – an accurate prediction as he rounded out the year with a record deal and two brand new songs: “Raised Up” and the viral TikTok hit “I Don’t Wanna Go To Heaven.” The powerhouse vocalist is now making waves with his latest release, "Whiskey On You," which is currently climbing the country radio charts. Nate is managed by Kevin “Chief” Zaruk and Simon Tikhman with The Core Entertainment.

Ashley McBryde Invited to Become the Newest Member of the Grand Ole Opry on CBS Mornings

Arkansas Native Surprised by Invitation from Country Icon Garth Brooks on CBS Mornings

WATCH: McBryde with Pillbox Patti “Brenda Put Your Bra On” Performance on
NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers

AP opines Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville creates
“detail-rich storylines with a John Prine level of empathy and compassion”
and NPR praises, “a mischievous, and mightily pleasing,
departure from the prescribed progression of a mainstream country career”

While performing at the Grand Ole Opry a little over a year ago, current five-time CMA nominee and two-time winner Ashley McBryde shared with the audience, “I dream about joining the Opry and what that day will be like — Will I cry the entire time? Will I be seated? Who will ask me? I dream about that more than I dream about my wedding.” No longer dreaming about the special day, the Arkansas native has officially been invited to be the newest member of the revered Country institution by Garth Brooks on CBS Mornings. Watch the clip HERE.

“It would be the great joy and the great honor of my life,” McBryde answered through joyful tears. “There’s the GRAMMYs and there’s being a member of the Grand Ole Opry – they are the two greatest things that can happen to you as an entertainer. I’ve always said I will earn it, and this is a pretty surreal moment.”

On the heels of the release of critically acclaimed Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville, McBryde took to NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers last night, Oct. 5, to perform the Outsider-dubbed “perfect introduction to McBryde’s wild little town,” “Brenda Put Your Bra On,” joined by album collaborator Pillbox Patti. Watch the performance HERE.

Cited by NPR as a “glorious detour into downhome character studies,” the four-time GRAMMY nominee and her collaborators leaned all the way in on Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville, garnering applause from critics upon its debut.

Produced by John Osborne, Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville includes performances from McBryde, Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark, Aaron Raitiere, Patti, Caylee Hammack and Benjy Davis, with Rolling Stone calling it a “wildly inventive” album “about a group of people all living in a little town just trying to get by,” as Billboardobserves, “While the songs do center on life in a small town, the stories and characters in Lindeville dispel the idyllic nostalgia that permeates many songs currently staking their claims on the country charts.”

“McBryde and crew created detail-rich storylines with a John Prine level of empathy and compassion,” praises AP, while Variety notes, “The very existence of an album like Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville is enough to restore your faith in Nashville, however far afield it might have wandered,” making it “Country music’s most ambitious and oddball album in recent memory,” observes Esquire.

Celebrated by The New York Times as “a skilled curator, as well as a performer,” McBryde “has made abundantly clear over the course of her short but fruitful career, she is principally interested in peeling back the layers and speaking the truth,” boasts Vulture.

Summed up by Stereogum, “There’s a whole lot of beautiful writerly vision at work on Lindeville, but it wouldn’t matter if the songs weren’t great. Guess what? The songs are great… A lot of people put a lot of work into this record, and they made something that resonates on a deep, emotional level. Give it up for them.”

“When it comes out,” McBryde shared with Esquire, “I hope everybody laughs a little bit and I hope everybody says ‘What the f*ck?’ a little bit. Sometimes you look and realize, this town is such a mess, everybody here is a disaster. And in the same breath, in that same three minutes, everybody’s okay. And I love those times. Sometimes I wish I could make that stand still a little bit longer—we’re all a disaster, and it’s beautiful. And that’s true whether it’s a small town or a big city.”

Album lyrics and credits available HERE.

About Ashley McBryde
CMA and ACM award winner Ashley McBryde cut her teeth playing country songs in rural biker bars – and it shows. Her 2018 major label debut Girl Going Nowhere (Warner Music Nashville) charmed the New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, Paste, The Washington Post and more, all en route to landing a GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album. McBryde closed out 2019 with ACM New Female Artist, CMT Breakout Artist of the Year, a New Artist of the Year win at the 53rd Annual CMA Awards and two nominations for the 2020 GRAMMYs for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for “Girl Goin’ Nowhere.” Her follow-up Never Will was tagged by Rolling Stone as one of the most anticipated of the year alongside NPR, who also ranked her Top 10 RIAA Platinum-Certified single “One Night Standards” as one of the best songs of 2019. Produced once again by Jay Joyce, Never Will reveals the witty, confessional, detail-driven songwriting addressing a wide spectrum of blue-collar Southern women’s experience introduced on Girl Going Nowhere is still here, but perhaps even sharper. The album earned McBryde a 2021 GRAMMY nomination for Best Country Album, making Never Will the only album nominated for Country Album of the Year by the ACMs, CMAs and the Recording Academy in the same award season. Her critically acclaimed duet with Carly Pearce, “Never Wanted To Be That Girl,” went all the way to No. 1 and earned McBryde and Pearce the ACM award for Musical Event of the Year. McBryde earned five total 2022 CMA nominations including her third consecutive nod for Female Vocalist of the Year along with Single of the Year, Song of the Year, Musical Event of the Year and Music Video of the Year for her duet with Pearce. The Arkansas-native invites listeners to Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville, a collaborative new project featuring Brothers Osborne, Brandy Clark, Pillbox Patti, Caylee Hammack, Aaron Raitiere and more. Praised by The New York Times as “a fluorescent carnival of pedal steel and thumping guitar that proves McBryde can be a skilled curator, as well as a performer,” Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville is available now. For more information, visit AshleyMcBryde.com or follow her at Facebook.com/AshleyMcBryde, Instagram and Twitter @AshleyMcBryde and TikTok @AshleyMcBrydeMusic.