Who Is Maren Morris?
She is an American country singer and songwriter who won her first Grammy in 2017 for her hit track “My Church.” She was born in New York City and grew up in the state of Pennsylvania.
Who is Maren Morris, and what is her background?
As a 12-year-old, Maren Morris started composing songs and singing them at honky-tonks around her hometown. In 2008, she relocated to Nashville in order to pursue a career in country music. As a songwriter, she worked with artists such as Tim McGraw and Kelly Clarkson before returning to her roots as a singer with the release of her self-titled EP in 2014. Hero, her first big label album, was released in 2016 and was a commercial success. This year, she was nominated for four Grammy Awards and won one for her first track, “My Church.”
The Beginnings of One’s Career
Her parents, Greg and Kellie Morris, are salon owners who welcomed Morris into the world on April 10, 1990, in Arlington, Texas. It was at her parents’ gatherings that she first started singing karaoke versions of songs like LeAnn Rimes and Patsy Cline. In addition to composing tales and poetry in school, the singer continued improving her writing abilities. As a young adolescent, she began penning lyrics for songs and playing at local venues when her father purchased her first guitar.
As Morris has said, “I began performing all across Texas – any bar or club that would allow me in,” citing Patty Griffin, the Dixie Chicks, and Sheryl Crow as among of her early musical inspirations.” The only other child at my school worked on weekends, and I was proud of it! She has been characterized to as a “gangster June Carter” despite the fact that her music is mostly country. While her style is predominantly country, she garnered notice by merging several genres.
A New Beginning: Moving to Nashville to Write Songs
Kacey Musgraves, a friend and fellow Texan, encouraged Morris to leave her hometown when she was 20 years old and go to Nashville, Tennessee, where she is pursuing a music career. It was when she auditioned for, and was ultimately rejected from, the reality television shows The Voice and American Idol that she experienced her first disappointment. The difficulties have made her more grateful in retrospect. “I think about all of the ridiculous talent shows I’ve tried out for throughout my life and I’m so happy I didn’t make any of them… I’m happier for it now,” she previously said in an interview with Rolling Stone Country magazine.
Her songwriting career took off after those unsuccessful auditions. She has written songs for country stars Tim McGraw (2014’s “Last Turn Home”) and Kelly Clarkson (2015’s “Second Wind”), among others. But she never lost up on her dream of becoming a singer, and in late 2015, she self-released an EP with the same name on Spotify. Columbia Nashville gave her a recording deal one month after she amassed 2.5 million streams in a single month.
Morris, who began with modest performances before opening for groups such as Little Big Town and Chris Stapleton, has said that becoming an artist wasn’t a deliberate choice on his part. I was more concerned with whether or not I was prepared to confront my own point of view. ” Even though I would have been content with only writing songs, a voice in my brain kept telling me, “You have to sing these songs.”
A Grammy Award for Her Debut Album “Hero”
Hero, her big label debut album, was released in 2016, and it included the breakthrough ballad “My Church,” which she wrote and performed herself. In addition to charting at No. 1 on the country charts, Hero and “My Church” were both recognized with Grammy Awards the next year, with “My Church” garnering her a nomination for a Best Country Album Grammy the following year.
A total of three further Grammy nominations were made for her in 2017, including one for Best New Singer, establishing her as that year’s highest-nominated country artist. As well as earning five CMA nominations and winning the Best New Artist award for 2016, Morris also received two Grammy nominations.
In 2018, she was nominated for another Grammy, this time for Best Country Solo Performance for her smash song “I Could Use a Love Song.” She won the award in 2017.
Collaborations and tours are planned.
Morris served as the opening act for Keith Urban on his Ripcord World Tour in support of Hero, which took place in the summer of 2016. As a headliner on her own tour in early 2017, she also travelled with Sam Hunt on his 15 in a 30 Tour, which she joined later in the year. In June 2018, she will perform as the opening act for former One Direction member Niall Horan on the second leg of his Flicker World Tour, which will take her to Oceania and North America.
In addition to her appearances on successful singles such as Thomas Rhett’s “Craving You” in 2017 and tourmate Niall Horan’s “Seeing Blind,” she also appeared on Zedd and Grey’s “The Middle” in 2018. It was the latter that peaked at No. 1 on the dance/electronic music charts.
Maren also founded the Highwomen with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, and Amanda Shires in 2016, who released their first album in 2017. Their self-titled first album was published on September 6, 2019, and it has received positive reviews.
Girl Morris’ second studio album, Girl, was released in March of this year. The initial hit, “Girl,” was certified platinum, and the follow-up single, “The Bones,” reached at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 list and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Song at the 63rd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
Morris won Female Artist of the Year and Song of the Year at the American Country Music Awards in 2021 for her song “The Bones.”
Observations on My Own Personal Life
Morris proposed to her long-term partner, singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd, in July of last year. The couple exchanged vows in a ceremony held in Nashville in March 2018. Hayes, their first child, was born in March 2020.
