Carter Faith was in the middle of booking a flight to Europe when Amazon called with an offer she couldn’t refuse. They wanted her to record a version of Faith Hill’s“Let’s Go to Vegas”to promote the Academy of Country Music Awards’return to Nevada. For an artist who’d grown up feeling connected to Faith Hill simply because their names shared that spiritual bond, the chance was too meaningful to pass up. She delayed her departure, hit the studio, and got to work.
What happened next is the kind of story that reminds you why risks in music still matter. Faith wasn’t expecting accolades from the industry establishment. She knew she didn’t qualify for the ACM’s new female artist trophy—her album, Cherry Valley, had no radio singles, no hit that would trigger the eligibility requirements. But when she found out during her time overseas that Cherry Valley had landed as a finalist for album of the year, something shifted.“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, by design, a strange and specific thing. The album takes its name from a small community 40 miles east of Nashville’s Music Row—one Faith spotted on a road sign and used as a conceptual anchor for something darker and more textured than typical country fare. The 15-song project wanders through folk, honky-tonk, traditional pop, and cinematic string arrangements, exploring themes of sex, drugs, religion, hypocrisy, and alcohol. Working with producer Tofer Brown (known for work with Willow Avalon and Little Big Town), Faith and her team were inspired by 1960s records—The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Nancy Sinatra—channeling that era’s sonic warmth and emotional specificity into something that felt both retro and deeply present. Brown kept the same studio band on every track, rescheduling sessions until the full 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 explains.
That cohesion translates. Despite its stylistic range, Cherry Valley holds together like an audio version of Valley of the Dolls: titillating, cheeky, gorgeous. It’s the work of an artist who refused to play it safe. Faith, who wrote her first song at 16 back in North Carolina as a way to process a breakup, had always wrestled with the vulnerability of performance. Stage fright nearly convinced her to stay behind the scenes. But once she committed—through her time at Nashville’s Belmont University, a songwriting deal with Universal Music Publishing Nashville, and now with MCA and its Gatsby label—she leaned into that vulnerability rather than away from it. Both producer Tofer Brown and Gatsby’s founder Jessie Jo Dillon protected her instincts, supporting choices that 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.'”
The ACM nomination on May 17 isn’t just recognition; it’s validation that audiences will connect with work that doesn’t follow the formula. Faith’s headed to the MGM Grand Garden Arena for her first awards-show performance, with Brown backing her in the band, and she’s honest about the strangeness of it all.“I’m the new girl,”she admits.“I’m nervous, and I don’t know these people that I’m going to be backstage with.”But she’s aware that the nomination suggests she belongs there, even if she doesn’t quite feel like it yet.
The label’s already greenlit Cherry Valley Forever: The Deluxe Album, a five-song expansion arriving July 24. Brown notes that just as towns grow, so can Cherry Valley—there’s no need to overthink how new neighborhoods fit the original design. For Faith, the next chapter is already in motion: she’s considering 20 to 30 titles for her next project, knowing full well that the pressure will feel different now. People will expect a sound, a direction. The real challenge, she knows, is to stay authentic.“I see a lot of people become caricatures of themselves, and I really try not to do that,”she says. The fact that she’s thought about this already—that she’s considering it carefully before it becomes a problem—suggests she might just pull it off.
About the Author
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.
