Amanda Hagel sharing These Roots

Amanda Hagel is an inspirational Canadian country artist. She recently released a video for her latest single These Roots. Her soulful sound combined with the lyrics gives a glimpse into her upbringing in Saskatchewan and the video puts the lyrics into a visual context. The video for These Roots includes meaningful props, each used to represent her life; important things, events, and people. The wheat field represents her family farm where she grew up and a flyover shot shows her actual family farm later in the video. The vintage truck, the locket, and the guitar all represent significant things to Amanda. The creativity in this video is a perfect representation of how detail-oriented Amanda is with everything she does.

These Roots video has expanded the reach of Amanda's musical talents into the U.S. since premiering on CMT.com. Amanda has other videos shown on Now That's Country, Nashville Country Network, and Heartland TV. Amanda Hagel has 4 albums including an album dedicated to cover songs and released 12 songs to country radio. She is a successful independent artist and has many awards to show for her hard work and dedication to her craft. She has been nominated for several others including Best Saskatchewan Album, Country Artist of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, and Spiritual Artist of the Year. Amanda has been invited and performed at several Canadian awards shows.

(click the album cover to hear These Roots on Spotify)

Amanda is a solo songwriter allowing herself to be transparent in her writing, keeping the process of writing in a personal and relatable form, and getting her uplifting stories out to the world. She is inspired and often refers back to 90's country songs by Pam Tillis, Trisha Yearwood, and Patty Loveless. She maintains a blog titled Be Inspired where she shares her spirituality. Amanda Hagel is a personal trainer and fitness coach but her main passion is still music.

Thank you Amanda for your time and for giving me a taste of your incredible talents.

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Helping you expand your country music listening, one artist at a time- In A Country Minute

-Rose

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Justin Dukes has a Ring For Sale

Songwriters tend to write about their own experiences. It makes their songs relatable and engages a crucial emotional connection to the lyrics. The mood of the song is expressed through the vocal ability of the singer. Their ability to capture the vocal influx appropriately to the lyrics set the story on a visual course. The listener can then connect to the song in a memorable emotional way. Songwriters have a gift to do this with a 3-4 minute lyric.

Justin Dukes and Jarrett Hartness wrote Ring for Sale with the influence of a real-life breakup story. The lyrics circle around how hard selling the engagement ring is while every detail of the relationship stirs through every thought. Such a sad and relatable picture it creates.

Writing and performing songs like this one, in some ways is like acting, you pretend to be the person in the story to connect their emotions.

Justin Dukes, photo by Marisa Taylor

Justin is originally from Vidalia, Georgia where he started singing and playing guitar as a young teen and started playing shows in high school. He moved to Nashville about 8 years ago to further his songwriting career. Up until the last few years, Justin played in nearly 200 shows a year. He has been the opening artist for several nationally known artists, from Shenandoah and Vince Gill to Charlie Daniels,

David Nail, and Luke Combs.

Justin Dukes's deep southern sound and writing style are a true testament to his musical heroes and George Jones is at the top of that list with Merle Haggard not too far behind. Justin's main focus is songwriting even though he is also a performing artist he has been writing many songs every week. He has, on occasion had to find a solution to the frustration of writer's block. His tip was to walk away, take a break and refocus. Justin's future goals include releasing more music and performing on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Justin Dukes has some other published co-written songs, some of which are with Matt Jordan on his album The Gamble.

Thank you Justin Dukes for giving me an introduction to your talents, in a country minute seems too short to showcase all the talent I find.

Rose

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Noelle Toland won't be in Limbo for long

Noelle Toland took the leap to move to Nashville about two years ago after graduating from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and starting a career, which was already far from her small hometown in Oregon. She has enjoyed performing since childhood and continued her love of the stage through her college years. Her biggest passion is songwriting and singing on stage. Noelle is an accomplished actress and has had placements in several films, movies, and TV shows, including Criminal Minds. Her training and experience in acting as given her the confidence to perform on stage. Noelle explained how it has not only helped her vocally but also emotionally to connect to the songs she is performing on stage. Moving to Nashville put her in a city full of musical talent and songwriters whom she is eager to learn from and work with. It has kept her humble and flexible while keeping her vision clear on her own career goals. Dolly Parton is an inspiration to Noelle, especially because of the grace and kindness Dolly has maintained throughout her career.

Noelle Toland

Noelle Toland's last song release was I Want To See You Again, which featured Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Award Winning guitarist Steve Cropper. Noelle explained how she came up with the title Limbo, the third song released on this EP. The song idea was born lyrically first with the story of a relationship going in an unclear direction. Limbo became the perfect title describing the unknown, waiting on someone else but having all the power to walk away. Limbo is the final original song on the EP and is followed by a Patsy Cline cover of A Poor Man's Roses, giving tribute to her love of traditional country music.

Noelle Toland plans on auditioning for acting jobs in between shows and bookings.

thank you Noelle for our conversation, it was nice to get to know you!

Until next time, that's a quick peek into Noelle Toland's story In a Country Minute.

Rose

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