Jana Kramer: In Nashville to Stay
"You Just Have to Be Here"
If you want to be a country singer, Jana Kramer says, you have to hang your hat in Tennessee.
“I tell people all the time that if they want to sing country music,
they need to move to Nashville. You need to dive in. Go to open mic
nights. Talk with people. All of that,” Kramer told me. “You just have
to be here.”
Kramer moved to Nashville six years ago to do just that, after gaining TV fame in her role as Alex Dupre on One Tree Hill. And she feels blessed that Music City welcomed her with open arms.
“Nashville seems to have said, ‘Wow, she’s staying, and she works
really hard.’ This is my home. It’s where my family is,” she said of her
life there with her daughter Jolie.
And even though Kramer is on the verge of releasing a brand new single “I’ve Done Love,” she has made time to take on some other passion projects.
She’s writing a book about the twists and turns her personal life has
taken in the past year, she’s starting a podcast about the joys and
faux pas of motherhood, and she’s been teaching her girlfriends to play
euchre — the card game she grew up on in Michigan.
All of that time in Nashville has made Kramer into a different kind
of artist than she was when she released her 2012 debut single “Why Ya
Wanna?”
“On that first album, I was all about making everyone happy,” she
said. “Now I’m all about making me and my fans happy. I’m choosing each
song carefully.
“As an artist, you grow and you give. So now as independent artist,
I’m happy with that because I know what fans want. And I can do exactly
that. My fans have been good to me with every up and down. I have people
backing me who believe in me. When I play live and they’re singing
every word, I think, ‘This is exactly why I do what I do.'”
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