Five North Texas acts who, like Maren Morris, migrated east

Three years ago, Maren Morris picked up her life and moved 685 miles east to Nashville.

The metaphorical cliff dive was spurred, in part, by her desire to more easily interact with other creative types, potentially building a career as a go-to songwriter for all manner of superstars, happily toiling in the trenches of Music Row.

“Because it is such a small town, the community is small and I think it’s similar in Texas, but because Texas is such a widespread state, co-writing is harder here, just because people live all over,” she told me in March.

What Morris could not have predicted, however, was that her songs — while sharp enough to attract attention from Tim McGraw, Kelly Clarkson and others — would catapult her into the spotlight, dashing any chance of a quiet, 9-to-5 existence in what she calls the “dimly lit writers’ rooms” prevalent throughout Nashville.

As trades go, however, it’s hard to argue that Morris made a bad one. What’s more, her relocation to Music City added her name to the ever-growing roster of North Texas-tied artists who are pulling up stakes and settling in Nashville, skipping the usual trajectory of jetting off to Austin, New York or Los Angeles (although, let’s be clear: plenty of musicians are still striking out for those particular metropolises).

“Nashville has been great, because it really is a stone’s throw from everything,” Morris says. “It’s funny: I feel like I meet more Texans in Nashville than I did in Texas. There’s a lot of us up there now. It’s a cool community.”

Here are five examples of how that community — those swapping the Trinity River for the Cumberland River — has grown.

Kacey Musgraves: A dear friend to Morris and one whom Morris credits with inspiring her to pick up and move to Nashville. Keeping track of Musgraves’ accomplishments over the last few years has been easy enough — her latest album, Pageant Material, has earned plenty of critical praise and kept her busy, touring around the world to sold-out audiences.

Andrew Combs: Billing himself as a “country-soul” artist, this Dallas native has wowed fans and critics alike with his haunting take on traditional country, exemplified on his stunning sophomore album, last year’s All These Dreams.

Green River Ordinance: This entry is a bit of a technicality, as only two of GRO’s five members call Nashville home: drummer Denton Hunker and lead vocalist Josh Jenkins. That leaves brothers Jamey and Geoff Ice and Joshua Wilkerson still residing in and around Fort Worth, where the band formed more than a decade ago, and continues to call its home, although supporting releases like last year’s Fifteen, often necessitates extensive national touring.

Casey James: The man from Cool who cut his teeth with jam sessions at Fort Worth’s Keys Lounge, among other area venues, rocketed to fame as the third-place finisher on the ninth season of American Idol. Although James was dropped from Sony Music Nashville (the same label that signed Maren Morris) last year, he did release a new single, Fall Apart, and is reportedly working on a new album.

Somebody’s Darling: Last year, the live-wire Dallas rockers, led by powerhouse vocalist Amber Farris, packed up and moved to Nashville, chasing a “new batch of inspiration,” as Farris told the Amarillo Globe-News last winter. The band, which released its third album, Adult Roommates, in 2014, plans to spend the year recording and touring, delivering more of its signature sound to ecstatic audiences.

Preston Jones

This story was originally published June 1, 2016 at 3:44 PM with the headline "Five North Texas acts who, like Maren Morris, migrated east."