Who Is Abbey Cone? The Story Behind Her Journey to Country Music

Country Swag is big on championing women in the industry, and we were lucky enough to get to chat with the lovely Abbey Cone. She is an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, and if you don’t know her yet, you will soon.

Cone is from Texas, so it wasn’t like she ever discovered country – it was all she knew. “Country music wasn’t even really a choice. It was just what I grew up on and what made the most sense for me to sing… country chose me.”

Cone didn’t have a traditional childhood, though. She loved music so much that starting at age 12 she traveled to Nashville from her hometown of Texas to start pursuing a career. “It was so fun. I feel like I was really fortunate to meet some really good people early on that I trusted…back then, it felt like a big little town. So I really got to experience just the magic of the Nashville songwriting community”, she shared with us. “It was hard sometimes, just to be a young girl and basically begging people to take me seriously and try to maintain and find my voice. It helped me grow a lot.”

While her commitment to the genre has served her well when it comes to her artistry, and she is grateful for her opportunities, she notes that there is a lot of sacrifice involved with these decisions. “I didn’t really have a normal high school experience. I left high school when I was 15 after my freshman year and have been in Nashville full time pretty much since then. It was a unique thing to experience, but it just feels like my story.”

The Turning Point:

Cone earned her first publishing deal when she was 16, but when she started collaborating with her producer-turned-love Nathan Spicer, she found her sonic home within country music. This led to her signing a recording contract with Valory Music Company and the release of her debut single, “Rhinestone Ring”.

“I met Nathan in 2018. We got set up on a write together and we immediately hit it off as humans and co-writers. I was at the phase where I was wanting to find a producer… someone who was equally as hungry as I was. And that ended up being Nathan”, she explains to us.

“I cut 6 songs with Nathan and those are the 6 songs I shopped when I got my record deal. It feels like a bit of a blur… we found out that we wrote really well together, that we produced really well together, and that we got along really well… we started dating three years ago now.”

Today:

Flash-forward to now, Cone is a CMT Next Women of Country, releasing music, and set to head out on her first tour in support of Brittney Spencer. On the topic of her song “Rhinestone Ring”, she shares, “Rhinestone Ring’ is about these big plans about a wedding and then meeting the person you feel like you could marry and realizing you don’t need any of that. It paralleled the pandemic and I think a lot of people learned or maybe feel like they don’t need as much as they thought to feel peaceful.”

“This is my first official tour that I’m doing – 8 days with Brittney in January and February. My booking agent called me and told me there’s this opening you’d have to submit for, and I said ‘please submit me!’ I called Mickey Guyton and was like, ‘I love her, I have to do these shows!’ and they ended up going with me. I’m just so excited.”

In terms of what’s next, look out for more tour dates and more new music in the upcoming future from Cone. She is poised to be an absolute superstar with incredible lyricism and a clear vision as an artist.

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