Kaylee Rose is a Nashville-based artist who taps into tradition with this song about a cheating partner, set to a simple backing. It’s the archetypal “three chords and the truth” – the phrase Harlan Howard used in the 1950s to sum up country music’s appeal.
Born in Miami, Kaylee Rosenberg (shorted to Rose, which is incidentally the real name of superstar Chappell Roan, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz), is only in her 20s but has been performing for more than a decade and has more than 50 million streams of her music.
As a child Rose was a hip-hop dancer with ambitions of performing professionally before picking up a guitar at the age of 11, when her family moved from Miami to a tiny town called St Augustine.
From the age of 14 she would play shows every day after high school to save enough money to move to Nashville, arriving in Music City in 2015 and making ends meet by working in a gift shop at the Johnny Cash Museum, and playing shows at night.
Her first single, Good Intentions, mixed her signature style of rootsy acoustic guitar with a mid-song rap section, followed by more tunes with what you might call classic country song titles: I Think I’m In Trouble Tonight, Wishing The Worst For You, Me Before You, Pick Her Up At 8.
Love Makes You Blind was another throwback to classic country, with a video shot at the Johnny Cash Museum and Johnny Cash Bar in Nashville, featuring photos and videos of Johnny Cash and June Carter on display as she walks through the museum.
“Johnny and June have one of the most iconic love stories of all time,” Rose says. “I worked at the Johnny Cash Museum when I first moved to town and always found their relationship to be so intriguing. They went through so many obstacles together, but never gave up on each other. They have always been an example of unconditional love.”