Abby Johnson

With fresh energy and bright intuition, Abby Johnson offers timeless folk songwriting teeming with a classic Nashville golden-era sheen. Johnson draws upon genre-spanning influences and wrangles them effortlessly into her own expression: “I want my songs to sound familiar, but tell you something new,” she says. The duality of Laurel Canyon nostalgia and indie rock blend effortlessly in her songs, polished further by the airtight backing band of fellow Nashvillians, Ornament (and produced by the band’s drummer, Ryan Donoho).

Raised in North Carolina on the earnest mythos of Taylor Swift, she describes her first songs as “diary entries — playing guitar alone in my bedroom until I was twenty three.” Moving to Nashville introduced her to an immersive musical community, where she steeped in the influence of folk-and-country stalwarts like Emmylou Harris and Bonnie Raitt in equal proportion to more contemporary indie songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers.

In early 2020, she hoped to become more involved in her local music scene, not only as a supportive showgoer, but as part of the bill. What was planned to be Johnson’s debut performance was canceled due to the pandemic — but that didn’t discourage her from releasing a slew of stunning singles (“Under the Weather / I Can’t Wait” and “Grow / Cryin”) later that year.

In addition to music, Abby Johnson is known and admired for her film and photography work.

(Lauren Turner)