Loren Ryan, Courtney Keil & More: The Highlights From This Week’s ‘Grass Roots’

Every week, ABC Country's Grass Roots program shines a light on the best independently released Australian country content. Selected from the hundreds of new tracks submitted, the one-hour program is now available on demand as well as premiering each Monday at 9pm on ABC Country, showing the health of Aussie country music across all its sub-genres. Here are four of this week's tracks you should have on your radar. 

Head here to have a listen to this week’s full episode of Grass Roots.

Loren Ryan – Take Me Home

Loren Ryan releases Take Me Home, her second single as the 2023 Toyota Star Maker winner. The song is an idea that's been floating around in Loren’s world for almost a year now. She had the first verse and chorus written when co-songwriter and producer Gavin Carfoot came through with this absolute stunning bridge.

Courtney Keil – Nothin' Like A Sure Bet

It’s the first taste of new music since her acclaimed debut album, The Good Kind, released earlier this year. Country songstress Courtney Keil is drawing on the queen of hearts in her catchy new single, Nothin’ Like A Sure Bet. Brilliantly produced by multi-instrumentalist Rod McCormack at The Music Cellar – who intertwined banjo, dobro, mandolin and acoustic guitar as the core instruments of the track – which gave the song an authentic country twang, bold and full of sass.

James Blundell – Queen Of The Lost Highway

Penned by the acclaimed international songwriting team of Australian lyricist Terry McArthur and Finnish composer Mika Kuokkanen, Queen Of The Lost Highway is a unique fusion of classic Hank William’s country meets contemporary Americana and Finnish minor chord melancholia. James Blundell says of the new single, "During my time in Nashville the term Lost Highway developed absolute reality. It was used when artists were suffering burnout or were playing the Don Quixote card.”

You can listen to the latest full episode of ABC Country’s Grass Roots here.