Hannah Juanita. The Hardliner. The Songbird. The Honky-Tonk Angel.
Tennessee native Hannah Juanita left her home state in search of her sound. After a few years of travelling, odd jobs and building stories, she ended up in Nashville with ‘nothing but her dog Loretta, her guitar, and a handful of heartbreak songs’ – and doesn’t that sound like a country-origin story? Juanita is wholeheartedly dedicated to the traditional country sound and has made a name for herself by staying old-school.
Juanita’s 2021 debut “Hardliner” is an impressive journey through heartbreak, loss and leaving, but her 2024 sophomore album “Tennessee Songbird” is a 32-minute-long love letter to country. Heartfelt, personal, fun and classic, “Tennessee Songbird” kicks off with a knock-out guitar intro, killer guitar breaks throughout the song, and the lyrics “I’m a honky-tonkin’ baby with a hardliner blues”. It’s the only introduction you really need to Juanita – she’s a call back to the days of country when if you wanted to make it, you really needed to want it. Country’s in her Tennessee blood and she’s letting it define her entirely: “Well I’ve done a million things, finally found my dream. Reckon I’m a honky-tonk girl” she sings on ‘Honky Tonkin for Life’.
She’s got the knack of writing with humour, like on the smoky whiskey-soaked ‘Granny’s Cutlass Supreme’ featuring Riley Downing of The Deslondes. A story about her grandmother that would work just as well around a campfire after a few drinks as it does on “Tennessee Songbird” – and she’s done this, having spent ‘countless nights singing fireside under the stars with friends’, evidently a time so formative that it made it to her artist bio. ‘Loose Caboose’ must be another one of the stories Juanita treasures about her Grandma back in the wild days when she “put on her bikini and made a pink martini”.
If any more convincing was needed as to why Juanita is very deserving of Grammy.com naming her one of the female artists creating the future of country music, her Live AF set with Western AF is just waiting to prove that point. A set of four songs from across her two albums and the new ‘Listen To The Road’, this is a classic country band at its finest: fiddle, steel, electric, bass and drums, with Juanita upfront with her acoustic, her infatuating vocal tone, and her enviable Western style.
As a real treat for the final day of 2024, Western AF uploaded their recording of Juanita, Cristina Vane and Brennen Leigh’s cover of the “Nebraska” masterpiece ‘Atlantic City’. A bluegrass take on the Springsteen classic with stunning three-part harmonies from three of our current ‘golden-age of country’ honkytonk angels – if country is in need of a new female supergroup, I’d make these three first choice.
Over the last couple of years, female artists who are embracing “real” country – the traditional, honky-tonk kind of stuff – have been gaining recognition and respect. Emily Nenni, Summer Dean, Kelsey Waldon and Kaitlin Butts to name just a few, but something about Hannah Juanita’s devotion to what country itself means seems to set her apart just a little. As I said, she’s writing love letters to country, and everyone wants to get a love letter.
