Now that Sam Barber has your attention, he’s looking forward to holding onto it a while. “I love making anything that can affect someone emotionally,” Barber says. The 21-year old singer-songwriter from Southeast Missouri has already seen his career begin on a meteoric rise, and his upcoming debut album, Restless Mind, is set to send him into orbit. The accompanying Restless Mind Tour in fall 2024, which features Barber’s Ryman Auditorium debut and showcase slots at the Giddy Up Festival and GoldenSky Festival, will introduce tens of thousands of new fans to Barber’s energetic and emotional live show as well. Recorded in Nashville and in Barber’s bedroom in Montana during breaks in his hectic 2024 touring schedule, Restless Mind will feature music that dates to the first songs Barber ever wrote. “It sums up my whole music career, and everything I’ve done,” he says of the record. The album ranges from stripped-down acoustic to fill-the-room melodies, so he tapped multiple producers, including Eddie Spear (Zach Bryan’s American Heartbreak as well as Barber’s 2023 EP, Million Eyes) to create the album, as Barber wanted to bring multiple perspectives to his sound. The first single off of Restless Mind is “Better Year,” which Barber is set to release on August 23. “It’s kind of about my life,” Barber says, “leaving home and struggling at the start, like anybody does. And I’m just hoping that next year’s a better year, that it’s all going to be worth it.” But it is the album’s title track that Barber holds dearest to his heart and believes fans will feel the same way. “‘Restless Mind’ is my personal favorite song. It means the most to me. It’s a very raw song, and I just love the absolute world out of it,” Barber says. “As soon as I found it, I knew that I wanted it to be the album title.” Barber grew up in a town of 200 people, on a 400-acre farm, surrounded by a supportive family and grandparents in the next house over from his. His youth was spent playing baseball, football, basketball, or hunting and fishing. He recalls a ton of Steel Drivers and early Chris Stapleton being played around the house. Eventually, an old Gibson guitar in his parents’ home struck Barber’s fancy. “My great-grandpa used to play guitar, and my parents kept it in the house like a showpiece,” Barber says. “One day when they weren’t home, I just thought, ‘It would be fun to play guitar.’ So, I just picked it up with no clue how to play it, started strumming, trying my hardest at it.”Not long after, his mother caught him singing in the living room, and she told him it wasn’t half bad. Barber took that as a compliment and decided to give music a go. While enrolled in a technical college, a friend suggested he post some music to TikTok. Barber caught on: “After like a month, one video just took off. Playing for a living was never even a possible thing in my mind, I was just doing it for fun.” He began releasing original music in 2022, including “Straight and Narrow,” a bedroom recording of a song he’d written when he was just 16. A powerful acoustic track about overcoming life’s countless hurdles, “Straight and Narrow” proved an RIAA PLATINUM-certified sensation, reaching #1 on viral charts worldwide while landing on such multi-format Billboard charts as “Hot Rock Songs,” “Hot Rock & Alternative Songs,” and “Hot Country Songs.” “It’s done everything for my career. It’s the whole reason that I’m here,” Barber says of the song. In the three years since, a lot has happened. He just missed the cut for the 20th season of American Idol in early 2022. He made his live debut in June 2023 at The Basement in Nashville — which sold out. Three months later, he made his Grand Ole Opry debut. In between, he played at Bruce Springsteen’s BST Hyde Park series. Million Eyes followed in October 2023, and Barber found himself in nearly every conversation about Country music’s next big thing. “In my mind, people still don’t know who I am,” he says. “It’s still weird when people walk up to me and go, ‘Oh, you’re Sam Barber!’ I still don’t think about myself like that.” For now, he’s just enjoying the ride and the thrill of sharing his music with fans. “I’m looking forward to meeting more fans, and pushing my career,” Barber says of his tour plans. “Playing live is one of the coolest things. It’s a feeling you can’t really replicate or explain, but being on stage with a crowd screaming back to you your own music is a feeling that will definitely never get old. “I’m getting better every show. So that means that every person who comes to a show right now, is going to get my best show.” ———

Embodying contrast, Savannah, GA native Jonah Kagen blends raw, intricate guitar work with lyrics that are as personal as they are universally resonant. Inspired by songwriters like Townes Van Zandt, Jason Isbell, and fingerstyle virtuoso Andy McKee, Kagen channels his introspection into powerful anthems made for the world’s biggest stages. His journey to his debut album Sunflowers and Leather began with a bit of heartbreak and a literal crash. After walking away from a stalled relationship, he bought a truck and an Airstream to chase something real. Just miles into the trip, he got into a car wreck. But instead of quitting, he doubled down, rebuilt, and transformed that Airstream into a mobile studio that carried him across the American West where he wrote, self-produced and recorded his most ambitious work to date.   At just 25, Kagen has already built a remarkable following: over 450 million global streams, 3.5 million monthly Spotify listeners, 800K+ followers across social platforms, and nearly 1 million Shazam tags. Much of it anchored by his breakout hit “God Needs the Devil,” a #1 at Alternative Radio and one of Spotify’s Best Pop Songs of 2024. That song, and much of his recent Black Dress EP, laid the emotional groundwork for Sunflowers and Leather, a 16-track album that explores everything from self-doubt and heartbreak to spiritual questions and the fleeting nature of life itself. Whether collaborating with Sam Barber on “Burn Me” or penning soon-to-be fan favorite “You Again,” an aching track about the long shadow of a past relationship, Kagen writes with the clarity of someone who’s lived it, stripped everything down, and started over. That spirit extends to the road, where he’s played Austin City Limits, Summerfest, AmericanaFest, and more, with festival stops this summer including Under The Big Sky, Calgary Stampede, Bourbon & Beyond, and has been asked to open for the likes of Vance Joy, Wyatt Flores, Cameron Whitcomb, and Chance Peña. With sincerity, ambition, and a mobile studio full of stories, Jonah Kagen has quickly become one of the most compelling new voices in music. His debut album Sunflowers and Leather arrives September 5th via Arista Records.