Carter Faith Makes Her Ryman Debut at Whiskey Jam 10th Anniversary Concert

Monday night (July 26), Carter Faith made her Ryman debut, closing out the sold-out Whiskey Jam 10th Anniversary show alongside some of the biggest names in country music. Carter, a 21-year-old country singer/songwriter, was introduced on stage as the “future for the next 10 years of Nashville” by Whiskey Jam curator Ward Guenther. 

After seeing a concert at the iconic Ryman Auditorium years ago, Carter swore that she wouldn’t return to the Ryman until she got to play the stage herself. As fate would have it, the Ryman hosted the 10th Anniversary celebration for the concert series, and Faith was the first name in mind to close the concert with a bang.

Whiskey Jam began back in January 2011, taking place in Midtown Nashville on Monday nights. Since then, they’ve transformed many up-and-coming artists into household names. Beginning as an underground writer’s night, Whiskey Jam grew massive crowds and artists with large followings, including The Fray, Kip Moore, Brett Eldredge, OneRepublic, and more. 

It’s easy to say that Faith is on the same path as the others who rose to fame in the spotlight of previous Whiskey Jams. She was chosen as the grand finale for the show after a chock-full line-up, including Jimmie Allen, Ryan Hurd, and Chris Young. Representing the new age of country music, Faith is a fresh face on the scene.

She performed her carefree song “Joyride,” a tune about how loving someone can be as equally freeing as hitting the open road. On the stage of the Ryman, Carter belted out: 

Take this fast car nowhere slow/ ‘Cause, baby, you’re my open road/ It don’t matter where we’ve been/ It don’t matter where we go/ ‘Cause lovin’ you’s a joyride for the soul.

Appropriately, Faith’s first memories of country music actually came from her own joyrides on the backroads of small-town Davidson, North Carolina—where she hails from. “My grandpa would drive me to preschool and if we got there early, he’d let me crawl in the front seat and pick cassettes to play,” Faith recalls. “And then we’d always walk in late… and that’s my first memory of music. My dad would drive all the pretty back roads in Davidson and it was always country music. So in my bones, I didn’t even really know that there were other types of music.”

Faith has been busy at work creating new music. Her upcoming EP, titled Let Love Be Love, is set to drop on August 20. The title of the EP was inspired by another art form that has been a crucial part of Faith’s creation process: poetry. The poem “Let July Be July” by Morgan Harper Nichols is about staying in a moment, even if it is one of uncertainty. A stanza reads,

“Let July be July. Let August be August. And let yourself just be even in the uncertainty.”

With poetry to inform her songwriting process throughout a time of personal and global uncertainty, Faith has certainly done an outstanding job of capturing the beauty around her in lyrical form. To get a sneak peek at her lyrical brilliance, Apple Music’s pre-save feature allows you to access her first release, “Buzzkilla,” a feisty tune about withholding one’s judgment of others, featured on Let Love Be Love.

You can pre-save Let Love Be Love here and jam to “Buzzkilla” below.