Hailey Whitters

An Iowa-bred country singer/songwriter with a strong instinct for storytelling, Hailey Whitters spent the early part of the 2010s paying her Nashville dues, gaining momentum with her 2015 debut then finding further success writing songs for Martina McBride and Little Big Town. In 2019, after years of work, she accumulated significant buzz thanks to singles like "Ten Year Town" and "The Days," both of which appeared on her acclaimed 2020 sophomore effort The Dream, which received a deluxe reissue the following year. Whitters' third studio effort, the Billboard-charting Raised, appeared in 2022.

The eldest of six children, Whitters grew up in the small Iowa town of Shueyville. Although her family wasn't musical, she felt a strange pull toward singing and, inspired first by '90s country radio staples like Trisha Yearwood and the Dixie Chicks, she eventually found her way to classic country artists as well as Americana fringe greats like John Prine and Gillian Welch, who also inspired her writing. Whitters moved to Nashville in her late teens and attended Belmont University, worked odd jobs, and spent years honing her craft, writing song after song.

A deal with Carnival materialized in 2012, resulting three years later in Whitters' debut album, Black Sheep. Over the next few years, her star continued to rise as major artists like Martina McBride, Alan Jackson, and Little Big Town recorded some of her songs. The real buzz, however, came in early 2019 when her low-key, all-acoustic single "Ten Year Town" began to pick up steam. A song about paying dues, "Ten Year Town" helped open the door for an even bigger success, "The Days," which arrived a few months later. Both appeared on Whitters' sophomore album, The Dream, in February 2020. Later in the year, she teamed up again with Little Big Town, this time on the collaborative single "Fillin' My Cup," and later with Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsey on "How to Break a Heart." Both songs were featured on 2021's deluxe expanded version of The Dream, Living the Dream.

In 2022, Whitters issued her third long-player, Raised. Her first outing for Big Loud Records, the album reached number 18 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart and saw Whitters returning to her Iowa roots with help from co-writers Brandy Clark, Nicolle Galyon, Hillary Lindsey, and Lori McKenna, among others. She ended the year with a pair of holiday singles, "New Baby for Christmas" and "Meet Me Under the Mistletoe." ~ Timothy Monger