Sunset Stage Series: Avery Anna Won an ACM Without a Radio Hit

Flagstaff, Arizona sits up in the pines of the high desert, a long way from any honky tonk circuit. That is where Avery Anna Rhoton was born on March 2, 2004, and it is worth saying at the top, because almost nothing about the way she became a country star followed the route Nashville spent fifty years building.

Anna won New Female Artist of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in 2026. She has never had a solo hit on country radio. Her own highest-charting single, Blood Runs Thicker, stopped at No. 47 on Hot Country Songs. The song that actually made her a household name, Indigo, is one where her name comes second, after Sam Barber. We think that combination is the most quietly radical thing in country music right now, and we think it has consequences for how a festival like ours gets built.

The Cover That Traveled

The origin story is short. During the pandemic Anna put a cover of Say Something on TikTok and it moved. Matt Thomas of Parmalee saw it and passed the video to the producer David Fanning, who reached out. In August 2021, at seventeen, she moved to Nashville. By June 2022 she had signed with Warner Music Nashville, and on September 30 of that year she made her Grand Ole Opry debut. Her TikTok following now sits around 2.1 million.

Her first release was the Mood Swings EP on October 7, 2022, carrying Narcissist, written by Fanning with Andy Sheridan and Ben Williams. Kelly Clarkson performed it on her show. That is the sort of placement a label used to spend a year chasing, and it landed before Anna had a radio campaign worth the name.

Seventeen Songs, All of Them Hers

Breakup Over Breakfast arrived on July 19, 2024, and Anna co-wrote all seventeen songs on it. Seventeen is an unusual number for a debut. Most new artists are handed a tight ten and told to let radio pick. Make It Look Easy, Two Sides of the Story, Blonde and Girl Next Door came off that record, and the sheer volume of it reads like someone who had been writing for years before anyone was listening.

Then came Let Go Letters on May 16, 2025, and this is the part we keep coming back to. Every song on it is built from a letter a fan wrote her. Mr. Predictable, Wish You Well and Danny Don’t all started as someone else’s handwriting. We have read a great many press releases about artists who listen to their fans. This is the only recent case we can name where the listening is the writing method rather than the marketing line.

The Forgive, Forget EP followed on March 13, 2026, with Fear in God, a duet with Sam Barber, and Blood Runs Thicker.

The Feature Has Become the Radio Single

Indigo was released in October 2024, credited to Sam Barber featuring Avery Anna, and she co-wrote it. It reached No. 40 on the Hot 100 and No. 8 on Hot Country Songs, No. 33 in the United Kingdom and No. 23 in both Australia and Canada. It is certified Platinum by the RIAA, double Platinum by ARIA and Gold by the BPI. Dusty Bibles, with Josiah Queen, went to No. 92 on the Hot 100, No. 14 on Hot Rock and Alternative Songs and No. 3 on Hot Christian Songs.

Now set those numbers beside her solo peak of No. 47. The old sequence in this format was radio add, then chart, then award, then a tour that paid for itself. Anna ran it backwards. The collaborations did the work radio used to do, the award arrived on the strength of them, and country radio has still not caught up to a voice that the Academy already voted for. That is not a gap in her resume. It is a description of where the genre makes stars now.

What We Have Riding on This Argument

We should be straight about our position, because we have one. We are building a festival. A festival that can confidently book artists whose audiences arrived through streaming and collaboration rather than radio rotation has a wider field to choose from and a friendlier set of fees. So when we argue that the feature has replaced the radio single as the proving ground, we are arguing for a world that happens to suit us.

The case against us is real and we will not soften it. Radio still sells tickets to people who are not already fans, and that is the hardest ticket to sell. Recognition does work that excellence does not. A lineup assembled entirely from streaming-native names can look sharp on an announcement graphic and still move slowly, because the person deciding how to spend a Saturday in April has to know a name without looking it up. Three country festivals went dark this year, and none of them went dark for lack of taste.

Where we land is that both things are true at once. The useful question was never which kind of artist to book. It is which slot each kind of artist earns, and what you are asking that slot to do.

Why a Listening Crowd Is an Asset Here

We wrote in September that Central Florida listens to country music sitting down, built as the region’s country infrastructure is around seated rooms and amphitheater lawns rather than standing clubs. For a confessional writer that is not an obstacle, it is the ideal room. An audience that came to hear words will hear them. A catalog assembled partly out of other people’s letters needs exactly that kind of attention, and an outdoor amphitheater in the late afternoon, before the light goes and the volume climbs, is where a songwriter gets it.

Anna added Girl of Constant Sorrow dates in March 2026. She is twenty-two years old and four releases deep, with a Platinum feature, an Opry debut three years behind her and an ACM trophy that country radio did not vote on. We will be watching where she goes next, and so, we suspect, will every booker in this genre.

Frequently Asked: Has Avery Anna ever had a No. 1 country single?

No. Her highest-charting single under her own name is Blood Runs Thicker, which peaked at No. 47 on Hot Country Songs. Her biggest chart result anywhere is Indigo, the Sam Barber song she co-wrote and features on, which reached No. 8 on Hot Country Songs and No. 40 on the Hot 100 and is certified Platinum. She won the 2026 ACM for New Female Artist of the Year regardless, which is the whole point of her story.

Sunset Country Fest takes place on April 3, 2027 at the Apopka Amphitheater, 3710 Jason Dwelley Pkwy, Apopka, FL 32712, with gates at 2:00 PM.

Sources & References

• Avery Anna, biography and discography (Wikipedia)
• Billboard: 5 Things to Know About Avery Anna, 2026 ACM New Female Artist Winner
• Indigo, Sam Barber featuring Avery Anna, chart history (Wikipedia)
• Avery Anna, artist page (AllMusic)

Disclaimer: Important Notice

The information published in this article is based on publicly available data from official sources, press releases, and music industry publications available at the time of writing. Tour dates, ticket prices, venue details, setlists, album release schedules, award nominations, lineup announcements, and all other details referenced in this article are subject to change at any time without prior notice.

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Last updated: October 8, 2026 · Sunset Country Fest Editorial Team · Contact Us