When Amazon asked Carter Faith to record a version of Faith Hill’s “Let’s Go to Vegas” to promote the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards’ return to Nevada, she delayed a flight to Europe several days to accommodate the opportunity.
Since their Faith-based names overlapped, Carter felt an affinity for Hill growing up, and the chance to do a song she associated with one of her heroes was too good to pass up.
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“When you’re younger, you feel connected to people for random things, and that was one of the things for me,” Carter says. “They asked me to sing that song. I was like, ‘Hell, yeah, I’ll cut it.’”
She had been forewarned that she did not qualify for the ACM’s new female artist trophy. The rules on the Academy’s website indicate that, among several other factors, an artist has to have earned a top 50 single, and Faith had yet to issue a song to radio. So when she found out during her overseas trek that Cherry Valley was a finalist for album of the year at the ACMs, which will be presented May 17, she knew something significant had occurred.
“I don’t have a hit on there, I don’t have a radio song, I don’t play these arenas,” she says. “But I feel like people just really connected with the music because it was different and said something that maybe a lot of people haven’t said in a while. Or ever.”
Cherry Valley is named loosely for a small community 40 miles east of Nashville’s Music Row. Faith had seen the name on a road sign, and she imagined a place where an upbeat veneer disguises a stream of difficult personal topics among its citizenry. The album explores sex, drugs, religion, hypocrisy and alcohol in a range of styles. The opening title track is a string-enhanced, cinematic outing, but the 15-song project drifts through folk, honky-tonk and traditional pop textures. Despite the wide range, it all holds together like an audio version of Valley of the Dolls: titillating, cheeky and gorgeous.
“Carter and I listened to a lot of older music,” notes producer Tofer Brown (Willow Avalon, Little Big Town). “We just are inspired by The Beach Boys, The Beatles, old country and all that. And we started noticing all these records that we were referring to, they all came out of, like, 1966, ‘67 and that era. The Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, and the sonics and the feel and the emotion and the heartbeat behind those records kind of inspired us.”
While the individual songs wander a bit stylistically, they’re united by Faith’s simultaneously bold and fragile vocals and a consistent production team. Brown employed the same studio band on every track; if a player was unavailable for a particular date, they rescheduled at a time when the whole crew could reconvene.
“It was a band of brothers and sisters coming together with the same thesis statement and shooting for the same target,” Brown says. “I think that that really helped with the cohesiveness.”
Faith wrote her first song at age 16 back in North Carolina, instinctively using music to process her emotions over a breakup. Writing became a pursuit, and she enrolled at Nashville’s Belmont University, focused on composition. She secured a songwriting deal with Universal Music Publishing Nashville, then signed with the company’s recorded music division, since renamed MCA, despite her initial reservations about performing.
“I’ve always kind of grappled with the thought of people seeing me sing these songs and being on stage,” she says. “I had such bad stage fright — you know, going up on stage and singing your songs is vulnerable. I think I’ve come into myself as I’ve lived here.”
As the album coalesced, Jessie Jo Dillon, who founded MCA’s Gatsby label, encouraged Faith to align with her imprint. Both Dillon and Brown protected her instincts, supporting her when her artistic decisions veered left of center.
“Me and Topher, we talked about it a lot,” Faith says. “We were like, ‘This should be the record that, if we never get to make another record, that this is something we’re proud of.’ And I really try to do that with every single decision. I just want to do it all up and not play it safe.”
The bigger the risk, of course, the bigger the potential reward, and the gambles in Cherry Valley paid off creatively. It became a critical favorite and obviously impressed ACM voters, sneaking onto the final ballot despite the organization’s tendency to celebrate hits.
Gatsby, meanwhile, isn’t done with Cherry Valley. The company greenlighted an updated version — Cherry Valley Forever: The Deluxe Album — with five new songs, due July 24. None of them were recorded when the original album streeted, though the community theme of the project and the existing variety of the material made it fairly easy to fold in new songs.
“Just like any town can grow, Cherry Valley can grow,” Brown suggests. “We allowed ourselves to be like, ‘Oh, we might be adding a new neighborhood,’ rather than being like, ‘How does this fit so perfectly?’ If you do that, you’re going to lose your mind, and you’re going to overthink things.”
For now, the original package allows Faith to go to Vegas for her first awards-show performance, with Brown behind her in the backing band. She’s aware of her outsider status, even though her ACM nomination suggests she’s as welcome at the MGM Grand Garden Arena as she is in Cherry Valley.
“I’m the new girl,” she says. “I’m nervous, and I don’t know these people that I’m going to be backstage with. I’ve heard about them, I’ve heard their music on the radio, I’ve seen them, and I’m a big fan of them, but I do feel like I’m kind of stepping into a world I’m not super a part of yet. That’s a little scary.”
Meanwhile, Faith does get to make another album. She’s already considering 20-30 titles for the next project, and she’s completely aware that it’ll be a different experience. With Cherry Valley, she recorded her songs not knowing who might hear them. Now, she has fans — in the industry in addition to the general public — who may expect a certain sound or approach. Her new challenge is to avoid becoming overly self-conscious, to continue to be real as she wanders beyond the fictitious Cherry Valley.
“I see a lot of people become caricatures of themselves, and I really try not to do that,” she says. “That’s kind of what I love about my favorite artists, is that they still feel like themselves.”
