Rising Country Artist, Musician Talk 2024 Plans
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WDEF) — Both Grace Bowers and Jackson Dean are looking ahead to a busy 2024.
News 12 caught up with the rising musician and country artist, ahead of their performance with Lainey Wilson at CBS’ NEW YEAR’S EVE LIVE: NASHVILLE’S BIG BASH.
Bowers is only 17 years old, but is considered a guitar prodigy. She says she started playing just a few years ago.
“I picked it up when I was nine years old when I saw Slash playing ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ on [Guns N’ Roses’] music video on YouTube, so that would be seven years now,” Bowers said. “I took a lot of lessons in the beginning mostly, and from there, I kind of just was able to teach myself.”
She’s now a regular at many of Nashville’s smaller music venues, so playing in front of 215,000 people in the Music City, and plenty more across the country at the New Year’s Eve Bash was a big deal.
“It’s the biggest stage I’ve ever played on,” Bowers said. “I’ve gotten a lot of really great opportunities in the past and I’m very thankful for those, but this is definitely going to be my biggest one yet, so it’s a great way to be bringing in 2024.”
The new year will also bring new music for Bowers. John Osborne [The Brothers Osborne] will even be working with her on an EP, which is expected to be released this summer.
“It’s been amazing. We’ve gotten quite a few songs written with my band, and we’ve been trying to write them like live in the room with everyone there,” she said. “We want the record to sound live. Most of it will be recorded live in the room and on the floor. Some of these songs I’ve been working on for years now, so it’s going to be really cool to see them come to life, and working with John Osborne is just going to be so incredible.”
Bowers will also be playing several festivals this year – including the Southern Skies Music & Whiskey Festival on May 11 in Knoxville. She says she also hopes to tour in the fall. 
As for Jackson Dean, he has plenty of his own accomplishments at only 23 years old.
He’s a member of the Grand Ole Opry’s NextStage Class of 2023, along with one of Spotify’s Hot Country Artists to Watch 2023.
You may recognize Dean when he opened for Lee Brice at Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga in August of 2022.
But this year, he’s doing his first headlining tour.
“I’ve been looking forward to that for a long time,” Dean said. “We’ve done a lot of opening up for people my entire career really. We used to do headline shows back home, but now it’s 11 straight weeks of it. Our show now, and what we’re capable of now, I’ve been with the same boys since I was about 13 years old, so going from then to now – it’s the same tour that Lainey did – a rough outline. It’s absolutely awesome. We can pretty much do whatever we want.”
A new tour also means new music.
“We did five days at Black River [Entertainment], and then another four days at Blackbird [Studio]. I think we cut 17 [songs] – yeah I’m landing on that,” he said, “Hopefully on that headline tour everything will be buttoned up and ready to go for after that, and start releasing some new music, but I’m very excited about this batch. This is some songs I’ve had a hold of for a minute, and some that we’ve written this year, and something that me and the boys arranged, so it’s going to be a fun time.”
If you missed the show Sunday night, you can still stream CBS’ NEW YEAR’S EVE LIVE: NASHVILLE’S BIG BASH on Paramount+ here.
