NYCS Swag Spotlight: Natalie Stovall

Natalie Stovall had quite the different upbringing compared to other children her age.  She explained her backstory to New York Country Swag in a recent phone conversation.  When she was very young, she knew that she wanted to play music and be on stage for a living.  She started playing the fiddle when she was four years old, growing up in a small town about an hour outside of Nashville.  Her parents were very supportive, driving her back and forth to all of her lessons whether it was for the fiddle, acting or singing classes.

Since she spent so much time in the car, she recalls always listening to music through the car radio. “I was such a child of the radio, it didn’t matter if it was country or top 40, but I kind of knew every song on the radio. I would do homework and listen to music in the car,” she tells us. She was enamored by the making of Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller” from a very young age, she explains “Thriller” and Cinderella were on repeat in her house.

“I grew up playing and when I was ten I auditioned for a show called ‘The Opry Land Kids Club’ it was kind of like the Mickey Mouse Club type of show, but it was in the same park as Opryland USA,” she told us.  From then on she took every opportunity to be on stage performing, singing and playing her fiddle for an audience. She attended college in Boston at a music school, perfecting her craft until she finally graduated, came right back to Nashville and has been writing and performing ever since.

She explains that most artists don’t spend as much time as she did on the road in the beginning, but right after college her love for being on stage has kept her traveling and playing gigs across the country. “I very quickly started playing over 200 days a year, I realized I had to start asking for days off or I would never be home,” she laughs. “I love being on the road, being on stage, that is where the magic happens and that’s where I want to be as much as possible.”