Hailey Whitters Has Those at Conway's Toad Suck Daze Festival Hopping with Excitement

by Julian Spivey

Photo: Aprille Hanson-Spivey

 
Many people may not have known the name of Iowan country music singer-songwriter Hailey Whitters before Saturday night’s performance at the annual Toad Suck Daze Festival in Conway, Ark. but she certainly had them eating out of the palm of their hands by the end of her 75-minute set.

Fifteen years from now those in attendance on the Conway square on Saturday night might be able to tell their friends and family, “I saw Hailey Whitters back before she blew up,” just like past Toad Suck Daze Festival goers could say today about now huge artists like Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and Little Big Town.

Whitters, from the tiny town of Shueyville, Iowa, has released three albums in her career thus far, the independent 2015 release Black Sheep and two well-reviewed albums in the last three years: 2020’s The Dream and last year’s Raised.  

Whitters, who has already been nominated for a major Grammy Award in 2022 for her co-write on the Alicia Keys/Brandi Carlile collaboration “A Beautiful Noise,” is up for her first Academy of Country Music (ACM) Award next week for New Female Artist of the Year.

Whitters opened her show Saturday night in downtown Conway with the title track from her latest album for the crowd that was a mixture of some who knew her (one big fan really enjoying herself in the front row even coming from Texas for the show), those hearing of her for the first time and festival goers stopping by amidst their stroll between grabbing freshly squeezed lemonade, corndogs and other carnival type foods.

I don’t usually pay attention to the fashion choices of the artists I see in concert, but I absolutely adored that Whitters chose to wear a beautiful lime green dress for a performance at a festival named after an amphibian.

Having only three albums – and two that have been what I’d consider major releases – Whitters was able to showcase much of her current discography on Saturday night and it’s pretty impressive for someone who’s only 33 years old (though she said she had been in Nashville working odd jobs and trying to make it big for a dozen years before she made it). It’s even more impressive that she seems to have a hand in writing nearly all of her tracks and has worked with many of Nashville’s best songwriters like Brandy Clark, Lori McKenna and Shane McAnally on co-writes.

Whitters had the opportunity to perform an incredible eight tracks off Raised, more than half of the album on Saturday night. Among my favorite performances from that album were “Plain Jane,” “Big Family,” and “Middle of America,” which she does with American Aquarium frontman B.J. Barham on the album but handled solo on Saturday.

The performance of “College Town” off that album was particularly poignant coming in the town known as “The City of Colleges,” for its three colleges all within walking distance of the town square in the University of Central Arkansas (my alma mater), Hendrix College and Central Baptist College.

One of my favorite songs off Raised is “The Neon,” which tells of a woman going through a breakup and getting back in the saddle and going out to have some fun. It was one of the highlights of Saturday’s show.

Whitters would perform four songs off The Dream and its deluxe edition, including “Fillin’ My Cup,” which she does on the album with Little Big Town, and “How Far Can It Go?,” which features Trisha Yearwood on the album. Whitters thrilled the crowd by doing some of Yearwood’s 1991 smash “She’s In Love with the Boy,” which was an obvious inspiration for her song.

Whitters’ cover game was absolutely on point on Saturday night with terrific performances of John Mellencamp’s ‘80s heartland classic “Small Town,” John Denver’s legendary “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and Alan Jackson’s 1994 No. 1 hit “Gone Country.” There was no doubt Whitters has great taste in her country and country-adjacent heroes.

Whitters ended the show with her biggest hit thus far, her first Billboard country music charter “Everything She Ain’t,” which peaked at No. 22 on the Country Airplay chart last year and apparently was helped out by a massive trend or following on TikTok. It’s the song that might have Whitters on a trajectory from critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter to a mainstream hitmaker. She’d be having hit after hit in country music if this were the ‘90s or early ‘00s, but we all know how much of a struggle mainstream country can and has been for women, even the absolute best of them over the last decade-plus.

Whitters is the real deal and I hope she finds major success within the country genre. I’ll be keeping up with her future output either way.