Like Chris Stapleton, Taylor Swift, George Strait, and K.T. Oslin, Jo Smith reaches deeply into listeners’ emotions by telling stories that sprawl across the landscape of the heart. Her soaring vocals deliver soulful grooves on songs such as “Old School Groove”—illustrating Smith’s ability to get inside a song, turn it inside out, and open it out to move listeners to recall the moments in their own lives when a song played as the soundtrack of their lives—and they turn tender and yearning, as on her latest single “Wyoming,” a heart-rending traditional country weeper that creates a spacious cinematic landscape of heartbreak. As Smith herself acknowledges, “In my songs I try to create moments where there’s no filter between me and my listeners.”

Smith grew up in a very musical household and started singing when she was 3. By the time she was in high school, Smith made a conscious decision to focus on music. Smith went to Auburn University, but during her freshman year, she started singing with a band in Nashville. “I realized then that I could tell stories in songs, and not just sing them. I became more interested in putting the songwriting aspects of my career first.” Shortly after she arrived, her friend Luke Bryan told her: “You need to write and learn to sing your own songs, and learn to play the guitar to do it.” Smith followed his advice and signed a publishing deal in December 2005. During the course of that deal, she wrote songs that were recorded by other artists.