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.
“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.”
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.
