I was 8 years old. I remember it was a cold night and I couldn’t sleep, my parents had gone to bed and I decided to creep quietly down the stairs and turn on the television. It was the Country Music Association Awards and suddenly I was listening to music I had never heard before in my life. I remember Alan Jackson performing and I was trying so hard not to blink just in case I missed a single note. Those sounds, the accent… the hats! I was well and truly mesmerized! I remember grabbing my maths book from my bag and writing down all these new musicians I had discovered. I was forced to replace my maths book the next day with a shiny 20p… and re-write all my sums.


That Christmas I asked my parents for Alan Jackson and Reba albums, my mum and dad had no idea who these bands and artists were. In my home we listened to Eurhythmics, Bette Middler, Tasmin Archer and the closest we came to Country music in our home was Fleetwood Mac. All my friends at school would always sing and dance to The Spice Girls and Take That, I was the strange child in the corner singing loud and proud to Elvis and Alan Jackson, my teachers would always ask ‘what ARE you singing Emma King?’.


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