NEW YORK, NY.- Budding country star Megan Moroney was 36 stories above Times Square last month waiting to meet some of her biggest fans, who were among the first invited to hear her eagerly anticipated second album, Am I Okay?
As she prepared to greet her guests in the glass aviary atop the Hard Rock Hotel, Moroney admitted shed culled them via social media, group chats and meet and greets. They dont know I stalk them, she said after slipping into a cobalt minidress from Zara and a pair of metallic Balmain stiletto boots. Her hair teased into a butter-blond cloud, she joked, Its 20 pounds of hair and 10 pounds of makeup. Its a look her fans re-create to varying degrees, but theyre also drawn to the way Moroney embraces the moments most people airbrush out of their Instagram-perfect lives.
One example is the closer of Am I Okay? (due out Friday), the spare, simple Hell of a Show. Its just a verse and a chorus, a raw artist singing over an acoustic guitar about being jerked around by a self-absorbed boyfriend, pulling it together to slay a crowd of people who love me better than you couldve, but still crying herself to sleep.
Its hard to believe that theres anyone who isnt clamoring for the attention of this 26-year-old rising songwriter. Moroney was the leading female nominee at the Academy of Country Music Awards this spring, competing for top prizes alongside Kacey Musgraves and Lainey Wilson. Her rocket-ship trajectory began with Tennessee Orange in 2022, a Romeo and Juliet ballad for fans of SEC football, which earned her 18 record company offers and nominations for song of the year from both the ACMs and the Country Music Association Awards. (She ultimately signed with Sonys Nashville, Tennessee, and Columbias New York divisions.)
Two years ago, when Moroney released her first EP, she seemed like just another attractive Nashville hopeful in a city overstocked with them. At least on paper. But she had ideas about how to become a star, and they started with her songwriting. Wry, vulnerable and a real reflection of how 20-somethings drink and wreck their hearts, Moroneys songs are authentic in a way the Music Row system can rarely access.
Juli Griffith, a three-decade publishing veteran who is now Moroneys manager, recalled listening to her for the first time and thinking, My God! That broken voice. You just believed her, and it struck you and stuck with you.
Moroney, who grew up in Douglasville, Georgia, didnt drink in high school and dated her brothers best friend for two years until he dumped her when he went to college. That first heartbreak shattered her but also provided resilience when she realized that she could survive.
She attended the University of Georgia and majored in accounting, getting a music business certificate in the process. Her parents wouldnt allow her to drop out to pursue songwriting, so Moroney, who graduated with a 3.9, pledged Kappa Delta and doubled down on college life. She started writing songs but not telling people. After bro-country star Chase Rice saw her playing a set of covers before singer Jon Langston performed at a sorority charity event, he asked her to open for him at Georgia Theatre in Athens, with one condition: She had to write an original song.
In those four years, I grew up so much as a person, learned so much about who I am, she said. Everything you go through in college, between the heartbreaks and being so drunk that youre literally fighting for your life on a curb, head between your legs that builds character.
Some emerging female artists would hesitate to be that candid. But Moroneys brand of truth-telling, equally funny and wounded, has struck a chord.
If you get a little too drunk and call your ex, like, whatever, she said. I think thats all normal and human.
As she prepped for the Hard Rock event, Moroney discussed the artists who have provided her with inspiration. She was raised on a diet of John Prine, Eagles, Emmylou Harris and J.D. Souther by her father, and said her glammed-up look was partly a representation of a distinctly feminine power.
Ive always loved the way Dolly and Kacey have their hair up to the ceiling, you know? she said, referring to Parton and Musgraves. Its like they can say whatever they want, dressed like that.
Am I Okay? is the follow-up to Lucky from last year and charts phases of several failed relationships, including one with a Mr. Right that was over before recording began; he inspired the title tracks euphoric vertigo of seemingly finding the one.
That started out really great, then was like, Wait! This is actually pretty horrible, she said, laughing about the whiplash.
The new songs run an emotional gantlet. Theres the too-good-to-be-true steel guitar celebration Third Times the Charm; a darker, minimalist track called I Know You that skewers a cheating soon-to-be-ex with layers of harmony that echo like voices in ones head; and Indifferent, which grows from acoustic to bombastic as Moroney bids a relationship goodbye with a dismissive wave.
Its like Im 26, dating people, and youre going to be wrong, she said. OK, fine. Thats the point: It happened, and Im OK. Its happening to someone right now, thinking this is the one. Theyre not, and its going to be OK.
Kristian Bush, Moroneys producer (and half of the Grammy-winning country act Sugarland), joined her in New York for the event. Moroney, who had been a publishing intern at his publishing company in Marietta, Georgia, called Bush shortly after she moved to Nashville, and he swung into action.
When Megan told me what she was doing, I got very protective and called Juli, my longtime publisher, he said. Meg was a pretty girl, and I know how those rooms can be; Juli was the only one I trusted.
Once convinced of Moroneys work ethic, Griffith signed on as her manager and set up recording sessions with people who would let Meg lead, which included Jessi Alexander, Luke Laird and Jessie Jo Dillon, the daughter of Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Dean Dillon. All have multiple writing credits on Okay? In the recording studio, Moroney prefers older-school processes to assemble a sound she calls a vintage car that flies: musicians playing together instead of relying on drum machines, computer tracks and overdubbed instruments. (She has branded her sound emo cowgirl country.)
I know in my songs theres a lot of Im bringing men down, Moroney said, adding that shed only been in love three times. But I always make jokes to the audience: Clearly I love men, because I keep coming back and I keep trying. It just keeps not working out.
Her honesty and wit have turned even casual listeners into loyal fans. At the Hard Rock, around 40 arrived from as far away as Arizona, California, Florida and even Canada. Some wore T-shirts with Moroneys picture and the words Feminine Rage. After gathering in a room filled with cobalt and silver heart-shaped balloons, Moroney played all 14 songs and offered (at times laughing) commentary.
The already released singles had everyone singing along with gusto, and Heaven by Noon, a ballad inspired by an uneventful last call between her aunt and uncle on Sept. 11, hours before his death in the attack on the World Trade Center, brought even the men in the room to tears. (They cried at some of the relationship songs, too.)
Moroney will be bringing the music to many more people at headlining shows this summer, along with her ongoing opening slot on Kenny Chesneys stadium and amphitheater tour, and shell be paying attention to the details.
If her dating life has been a minefield, she believes that using the shrapnel for her career is intentional: Things dont happen to me; they happen for me, she said.
And there have been important lessons in the highs and lows of her personal and professional lives so far.
To me, the strong people can look at the sad situation and be like That was really messed up. You hurt my feelings. Maybe Ill have a song and be vulnerable by saying that, she said. But also, Ill follow it up with a song thats like Im going to be just fine. Dont worry about it.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.