Hit Songwriter Nicolle Galyon Launches All-Female Record Label, Songs & Daughters

Hit songwriter Nicolle Galyon (Dan + Shay’s “Tequila,” Miranda Lambert’s “Automatic”) has some big plans to move the needle on female inclusion in country music. She’s teaming up with Big Loud Records to launch the all-female label Songs & Daughters.

Making the announcement via Billboard, Galyon says she’ll serve as the label’s president and hopes to make space for more country females — despite radio programming which continues to play them a fraction of the amount it plays males.

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SONGSANDDAUGHTERS.COM

A post shared by Songs & Daughters (@songsxdaughters) on Jul 22, 2019 at 1:41pm PDT

“Songs & Daughters is a female-focused record label, but even bigger than that, what [we’re] building is a brand: a music house for female creatives,” Galyon says. “It’s a way for me to use my platform and pass the baton onto the next generation of songwriters and artists. I want to create something that didn’t exist when I came to Nashville 17 years ago.”

The all-female idea was Galyon’s, explains Big Loud Vice President Seth England, but the label’s first signee came from the Big Loud family. After England set up a listening event for songwriter Madison Kozak, Galyon had found her first Songs & Daughters artist. Kozak’s tender “First Last Name” — a tribute to her dad written for Father’s Day — will be the imprint’s debut single.

“The mission is that we nurture both the art, which is the song, and the artist, which is the daughter,” Galyon says. “The person is just as important to me as the product. … When I moved to Nashville, no one said it out loud, but it was kind of implied that there’s room for a girl. There is room for [just] one. Without ever saying it out loud, just through action.

“To me on a heart level, this is an extension of mothering,” the mom to two continues. “I want to help and grow these things that I love. It just comes natural as I grow in age, too, to just see people that remind me of where I was and to go, ‘Come on, come with me. Let’s go do this,’ because I didn’t feel that way when I moved to Nashville.”

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WHEN I THINK ABOUT TURNING 35 TOMORROW —— I think about lyrics like “when 30 was old” & “in my next 30 years” & “is there life out there, so much she hasn’t done”—— and how someone deciding to put those words to music — then someone choosing to put that music on the radio — made me stop in my bedroom and think about the future. and then it made me want to put my car on the interstate and drive to a new place. to ultimately make a life for myself that was unlike anyone else’s in my town. and I bet at the time, the people writing those words were just being as honest as possible (I see you Matraca Berg) — maybe not even considering the exponential ripple effects of them just being their authentic, creative selves? maybe if it wasn’t for songs like that, I wouldn’t have thought so far in the future. maybe if it wasn’t for songs like that, there never would’ve been a Charlie. maybe if it wasn’t for Strawberry Wine, there would have never been Tequila. I am merely a daughter of the songs that raised me. so now, here I am — on the eve of 35 — and i’m more of a mom than a daughter these days. so i’m vowing to wake up tomorrow and try to make something that might make somebody else want to be brave. maybe put their own wheels on a highway. and hopefully make their own kind of music. #songmom 📸: @_blythethomas

A post shared by Nicolle Galyon (@nicatnitemusic) on Jul 21, 2019 at 7:36pm PDT

Kozak’s “First Last Name” is set to hit digital retailers on July 26, and the emerging artist has tour dates planned with Willie Nelson, Morgan Wallen, Midland and Billy Currington this fall.