See New Singer Bailey Bryan’s Stunning Tour of Her Cascade Mountain Town

“I did grow up in a small town and I think that’s where country music comes naturally for me,” says Bailey Bryan, one of Nashville’s most promising young singer-songwriters. The 19-year-old was raised in tiny Sequim, Washington, in a far corner of the Pacific Northwest, but she also was exposed to the sounds coming out of nearby Seattle, from hip-hop and pop to the lingering shadow of Nirvana and the grunge movement. 

The music she performs, a bright mix of pop-country, excels because of her way with a lyric – in debut single “Own It,” she drops the clever line “I’m right even when I’m wrong / I break things like hearts and iPhones.” In the latest episode of Rolling Stone Country Pickups, Bryan performs the new ballad “Used To,” documenting her move from the West Coast to landlocked Nashville, and returns to the scenic burg of Leavenworth, Washington, in the Cascade Mountains, where she used to sing in the town square for tips.