JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, another in our occasional series called My Music, where singers and musicians talk about their work, their influences and the art of their craft. If you haven't already heard of her, let's introduce Margo Price. She's up for a Grammy for best new artist next month. The 35-year-old country musician is making waves with songs about the beauty and struggles of rural America and about her own issues with alcohol, loss, and trying to make it in Nashville. She's also been outspoken on issues of gender equality and gun control. Price sat down with the NewsHour recently show at Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club. Here's a listen
MARGO PRICE, Musician: When I first moved to Nashville, I didn't have a lot of life experiences. And the kind of country music that I like has always been about the struggle and the darker sides of things, divorce and drinking and the sad side of life. So, eventually, that's what my life became, for better or worse. My name is Margo Price, and I'm a singer-songwriter living in Nashville, Tennessee. My first album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, was kind of the honest glimpse of everything that had happened since I had moved to Nashville, just struggling in the music business, and drinking too much, and running around with the wrong type of people. I just was pretty unafraid to talk about my struggles at that point, and wasn't afraid to be self-deprecating and honest about my hardships. And I think people love an underdog. We wrote the second album kind of when we were on the road touring Midwest Farmer's Daughter. And we were seeing a lot of America. And I definitely had done a good amount of introspective writing about myself. And so we thought it was a good idea to kind of look at what was going on in our country. We just wanted to show working-class America. We just wanted to show the everyday people who are really making this country run. And, many times, they're struggling. Oddly enough, we wrote that song during the Obama administration, and we recorded it prior to the election. And but they were campaigning at that time. And I was already starting to see a lot of division. I think, definitely, the song had new meaning post-election. And I have changed some of the lyrics when we do it live. I hope that we can preserve what we have here and keep our country beautiful.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Lovely.
