Though she looks like any other blonde, sun-kissed beauty, Morgan Frazier carries herself like a country star.
As a rising artist in the country music community, the 20-year-old Nashville transplant has been recording songs since age 9, played the Grand Ole Opry and signed her first record deal at 16. In the music industry, these are all signs of musical prowess that can only blossom into a fruitful career. For how hard she works, Frazier is more than deserving of it.
She possesses a charm that’s common to country musicians — a combination of humility and self-effacing humor that immediately makes people comfortable around her. It’s a foil to the young-gun ferocity that she uses in performances. On stage, Frazier seems acutely aware that she could be the next household name in country.
While acts like Miranda Lambert have embodied the empowered female lead role in country music and Carrie Underwood has proven herself so much more than just a reality-show contestant, Frazier knows that she’ll likely have a niche to fill herself. Rather than build an image, she said she wants to stay true to herself.
“I think girl next door is my thing. I just look like every other girl walking around, so I hope that I can relate to girls and guys that way,” Frazier said. “Come up and talk to me. I’m not going to brush you off or think that I’m better than anyone else.”
An element of her down-to-earth nature is an appreciation for the community in which she has made a name for herself. After moving to Nashville on her own at age 16 at the urging of her manager, Frazier has penned songs with some of Music City’s biggest names in songwriting, while earning her stripes as a co-writer.
Nashville is still a small town despite being the premier destination for any budding country act, and Frazier is reminded of that every time she steps out her door.
“Always be kind because you never know who you’re around in Nashville,” she said. “If you say one thing about someone, you could have their record producer sitting right beside you.”
For being as young as she is, Frazier was fortunate enough to grace Country Thunder’s main stage last weekend, during which the festival reached its 25,000 person capacity for the first time in its 20-year history. Her live act is engaging and warm, as if she could walk off the stage at any moment and personally thank you for watching her.
It seems that part of her gracious nature comes from knowing that the songs she plays, whether solely her own or the product of a co-write, take just as much effort to pen as they do to perform. That mindset extends as far as her upcoming LP, on which she steps aside to let other writers shine.
“Songwriting is a big thing for me, and I don’t take for granted the songwriters in Nashville,” Frazier said. “With my record, I wanted to not only write some of it, but go ahead and look for other songs out there. I wanted to be smart about it.”
If Frazier is anything, she’s self-aware, and she runs her operation as if she’s wise beyond her years. While there’s bound to be some disconnect between new listeners and the idea of yet another blonde, lithe and belting country star, Frazier is well worth a second look. She’s true to her roots, as any respectable country act should be.
“I never want to record anything I can’t relate to myself,” she said. “I’m not going to sing a song about how my daddy was a farmer, because that never happened to me. I feel like if you’re going to sing it, you gotta believe it, and you gotta sell it.”
