Nashville Songwriter Nicolle Galyon Shifts Gears From Hit Tunesmith to Freshman Artist With Debut Album, ‘Firstborn’

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticFor Nicolle Galyon — a BMI songwriter of the year honoree and co-writer of nine No.

1 country songs, including Miranda Lambert’s “Automatic,” Blake Shelton’s “Minimum Wage” and Dan + Shay’s “Tequila” — there was nothing automatic about making the shift from hit tunesmith to (basically) first-time recording artist.

But two decades into her Nashville career, the Kansas native has a debut album in the form of “Firstborn,” an album of almost entirely new and autobiographical material (with the exception of “Consequences,” a song she co-penned for Camila Cabello’s first album).“This is a way for me to take back true creativity for me, and not be at the mercy of anyone else’s process,” she tells Variety. “My whole career, I’ve been of service, to serving others in their art.

And I felt like I owed it to myself to serve myself” — along with, she says, owing it to her two children, who she realized might have to piece together her real personality from the bits and pieces of it that snuck into the hits she wrote for others.