They say, my country accent’s too thick / Where’s my boots, I’m about to get up and get, boot-stompin’ local country music artist Ashley Dawn sings on her countrified tune “Back to My Roots Agin.”

A newcomer to Middle Tennessee by way of New Mexico, Ashley Dawn has a passion for country music and for helping others. If she can use her country music to help others, even better.

She appears to genuinely love playing music, writing music and talking about music—often seemingly not able to stop smiling radiantly while performing—and also loves meeting people and making connections.

“I love country music, ’cause it feeeeels good!” she said.

According to her bio, “Her presence scatters unhappy emotions the way dawn dispels the gloom of night.”

Her enthusiastic twang and style channels Dolly, Reba, Garth and the popular country heroes of the ’90s. Ashley Dawn has recently been releasing slide- and fiddle-drenched singles on Spotify in preparation for a full album release soon.

“Anybody ever live in a trailer?” she asks the audience during a recent performance. “I did!” she says with a laugh, before launching into her song “Trailer in the Woods.”

It’s a dream come true, living in a trailer in the woods with you, she sings.

Since arriving in Murfreesboro, Ashley Dawn has played Hank’s Honky Tonk, the Bluebird Cafe, Station Inn, Hop Springs and other area venues.

At an October appearance at Gallagher Unplugged, she provided some more details on her own story and her vision for helping others.

She has been through plenty of tough times herself. Following the emotional low point of her mother’s death, she experienced a financial low point of being a single mother struggling to provide for herself and three children.

But the people in her life encouraged her; not just to continue on the path of songwriting and playing music, but, she elaborated, “This group of individuals continued supporting me financially.”

“Someone gave me that truck out there! They paid the rent, fed my kids. Someone gave me a vacuum . . . a nice vacuum,” she said. “I just had my faith and my children to work very, very hard for. Some people really encouraged me.”

After getting married and relocating to Middle Tennessee, Ashley Dawn wants to be that force in the lives of others now, not only by teaching music to those who want to learn and encouraging young songwriters to hone their craft, but she intends for her music management and promotional business, the W. Stonewall Group, to purchase music catalogs, and to build catalogs of locally written tunes from up-and-coming performers, and use the royalties to benefit orphans, widows, teachers, the homeless and others in their hour of need.

When wondering and seeking what direction to go in life, she said her Bible fell open to Isaiah 1:17, reminding her to “do right; seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”

“If that’s not a clear sign, I don’t know what is,” said Ashley, a producer, writer, engineer, motivational speaker, brand director, mental health advocate and mother.

Her songs from the heart touch on motherhood, heartbreak, living in a trailer in the woods and getting back to one’s roots. With these songs, along with her powerful voice and instrumental creativity—she does some interesting things on guitar—Ashley Dawn travels from folk-rock territory to Spanish-flavored jazziness to her signature “boot-stompin’ country.” Look for much more from Ashley Dawn in Murfreesboro and online over the coming months, or maybe catch her riding her steel horse around town.

Find music from Ashley Dawn on Spotify and check ashleydawn.com for updates on releases, shows and livestreams.

She’s fire and she knows it . . .