As Tenille Arts took the stage at her CD release party in Nashville on October 26, a pink neon sign with her name glowed next to a glittery acoustic guitar. The sign was an end-of-tour gift from the members of Lady A, and serves as a reminder of the stellar year the 27-year-old country singer is having. Just a couple weeks earlier, Tenille wrapped a 33-city tour as one of the opening acts for the country music megastars. And on this night, nearly 400 fans and music industry people – as well as Tenille’s momma, who flew in from Canada to surprise her – came out to hear and celebrate the release of her new album, Girl to Girl.
The 13 songs on the album are somewhat autobiographical. Most were written during the pandemic when the world shut down and Tenille had time to reflect on her life. Many of the songs were written during Zoom sessions; there were 17 co-writers in all. As she introduced one of her songs, Tenille told the audience, “I really just wanted to write these songs like a letter to my younger self and to my fans.”
Tenille started her set at 3rd and Lindsley singing “That’s My Friend You’re Talking About,” a song that encourages girls not to play the comparison game when it comes to how they look and feel about themselves. A few songs into the set, Tenille was joined by 18-year-old Callista Clark, who is featured on the recorded version of “Breakup Songs,” and who also played several of her original songs to warm up the crowd for Tenille. By the way, Callista’s sassy single “It’s ‘Cause I Am” is currently moving up the country music charts and approaching a million views on YouTube.
Later in the night, country artist Matt Stell surprised the crowd when he joined Tenille for the duet “Over You Is You.” Matt is one of the song’s co-writers and is also featured on the album version. Many country music fans know Matt from his 2019 hit “Prayed For You,” a song that was #1 on the charts for two weeks and has more than 270 million streams.
For the heartfelt ballad “Growing Old Young,” Tenille sat on a stool with her acoustic guitar, accompanied by a cello. As she introduced the song, she said writing it during the pandemic with Shane Sniteman and Ray Fulcher was like a therapy session. “I realized there were a lot of things in my past that I hadn’t written about yet, and a lot of things that I had heard from fans and from my best friends that they were going through, and I just felt like this song needed to be written.” She credits Shane for coming up with the idea of ‘growing old young.’ “This was the absolute perfect way to sum up all the feelings that I had, and the feelings that I knew that my fans had been through, and my friends and family had been through.” Tenille hopes this song will encourage “anybody out there that felt like they had to grow up a little too fast in this world.”
The band came back on stage for the remaining songs, including “Back Then Right Now,” which is moving up the national airplay charts as the first single from the CD. Watch the official music video below.
She closed the set with “Somebody Like That,” which was her first #1 single (from the previous album Love, Heartbreak, & Everything in Between). That song debuted on ABC’s The Bachelor, and made history as the first song written, performed, and produced entirely by females to hit #1 on the Country charts.
In 2022, Tenille is slated to do six shows on Scotty McCreery’s Same Truck Tour. She will also be joining Dierks Bentley for the Canadian leg of his Beers On Me Tour.
Listening to the songs on Tenille’s new CD is like having a heartfelt conversation with a friend….Girl to Girl.
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Watch the video below to hear the chorus of "Girl to Girl" from the release party.