Before she was a “Girl Goin’ Nowhere” in “A Little Dive Bar In Dahlonega” with “One Night Standards” Ashley McBryde was a little girl who was inspired to find her way to Music City because of Lacy J Dalton‘s “16th Avenue,” “‘God bless the boys, that make the noise on 16th Avenue,’ inspired me at 12-years old to want to move to Nashville.”

Ashley recalls listening to the song and being enthralled by not only the lyrics, but the structure of the story within the track that Lacy J sang, and Thom Schuyler wrote, “I think the way the songwriter…set it up, ‘From the corners of the country, From the cities and the farms. With years and years of living, Tucked up underneath their arms. They walk away from everything, Just to see a dream come true. God bless the boys who make the noise, On 16th Avenue.’ This inspires me to ask my mother ‘Where are they going with everything they own tucked up underneath their arms?’ ‘They drove to town with all they own, In a hundred dollar car’…all of this. Where is that? Because I’ve been told that they will go there, they will walk away from everything they know to go there.”

Ashley remembers her mom’s answer, “Mom said ‘Oh, 16th Avenue is in Nashville, Tennessee’, I said ‘Then that’s where I’m going to go. That’s what I want to be.'”

Ashley McBryde is the one making noise on 16th Avenue now…and this Wednesday, January 13th, she’ll be bringing her latest song “Martha Divine” to The Ellen DeGeneres Show–her first performance on the popular talk show.

Check out the music video for the “killer” track from her album Never Will, right here…

Photo Credit: Daniel Meigs