Troubadour Blue frontman and songwriter Daniel Ethridge is a songwriter’s songwriter. In a town where what’s popular changes with every trend and viral moment, his compass stays forever pointed toward writing the best possible song.
This honest approach has led his bluegrass project, Troubadour Blue, to some significant career milestones over the last several years. Since the trio’s debut at Ryman Auditorium in 2022 when they opened for Grammy-winning band, The SteelDrivers, their star has continued to rise in the bluegrass circuit and beyond.
Along with touring as direct support for The Red Clay Strays and The SteelDrivers in 2024, they sold out the Station Inn as the headlining act in June. Meanwhile, their introductory album, Shadow of a Doubt, has racked up over 600,000 spins on Spotify since its release in February. Ethridge co-wrote all 12 songs on the LP, which he describes as “narrowing in what we do as a band, who we are and what we write about.”
Currently, Troubadour Blue is working on their second album, which is slated for summer 2025 and features instrumentation from genre legends like Mickey Raphael and 14-time Grammy winner Jerry Douglass. As Ethridge shares studio air with musicians like these, he maintains a level-headed perspective on where he came from and how he got here.
“All the time, I’m asking myself, ‘would 12-year-old me be really amped about what I’m doing?’” he says. “The answer is yes, every single day.”
12-year-old Ethridge lived in Austin, Texas. His family relocated there from California two years prior, and he was still finding his footing in the new city. Moving at the start of middle school is challenging enough, but there’s also something to be said about the stark cultural chasm between Long Beach and the Lonestar State. As part of acclimating to their new home, Ethridge’s dad bought him a shotgun for hunting.
While this helped in the waterfowl months, Ethridge was still excluded from deer season. Thus, he started saving for a rifle. After months of mowing lawns and washing cars, he’d raised enough to start looking, but ultimately his mom decreed that one gun was plenty for an 11-year-old.
So instead, almost on a whim, Ethridge bought his first guitar on Craigslist. Having grown up playing piano and cello, he took to the instrument like a duck to water. And, being in Austin, he felt an affinity for blues and country. He became obsessed with guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nels Cline, and John Mayer, folk-leaning acts like The Civil Wars and Ryan Adams, and Texas music legends like George Strait and Randy Rogers. At 18, his passion for music drove him to attend Belmont University in Nashville, which proved to be a hugely formative moment.
“In those four years [at Belmont],” he recalls, I realized that I have a real love for writing songs. There’s a beauty at being at the center of creation, as far as songs are concerned.”
“Early on, I wanted to be Stevie Ray Vaughan,” he continues. “Or Eric Johnson, or John Mayer. But the thing I kept going back to was the lyric writing and the storytelling. And that’s not to say that those guys don’t do that, but their primary focus is the guitar, and once I realized that my heart and soul really was in lyrics, I started gravitating toward songwriters that influenced me.”
This clarity came to him, he remembers, sometime in his sophomore year.
“That era where Jason Isbell put out Southeastern; Stapleton put out Traveler; The Lone Bellows put out their first record — I can draw a straight line from that moment to now. And over these 10, 11 years, my whole journey has been about figuring out, ‘okay, how do [I do] that type of thing in a commercially relevant way?’”
After graduating, Ethridge remained in Nashville, determined to make a music career happen. Like many songwriters, he paid his dues by navigating the flaky music publishing world. While working in retail, he had multiple deal offers go right up to the finish line, before falling apart due to some freak occurrence.
In 2018, Ethridge won the 2018 Texas Songwriter U contest, judged by Texas songwriting legends Jack Ingram and Liz Rose. Shortly afterward, to get something going, he re-linked with his Belmont friend Brenna Wheeler. In 2019, and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, they wrote their first few songs together. After Wheeler’s brother, Eli Wheeler, graduated from college in North Carolina, he relocated to Nashville, and the three musicians formed Troubadour Blue in 2021.
While the band worked to find their footing and gain some momentum, Ethridge never lost his focus on the songwriting path. One of his industry champions, Curb Music’s Sarah Schumacher, scheduled Troubadour Blue for a co-write with Rose Falcon, who is married to Rodney Atkins. Falcon introduced Ethridge to Atkins, and after two writes, the country superstar offered to sign him in a joint-venture with Curb Word Music.
The deal was finalized in 2023, just as Troubadour Blue started gaining some real momentum. Fast-forward to today, and Etheridge works double duty as a staff songwriter and frontman of a headlining bluegrass act. But inside, nothing’s changed. He still takes every step forward with a clear vision of who he is — and what the job is.
“For me, it’s about knowing your role, staying in your lane, and being confident in yourself. I’m not Ashley Gorley or Craig Wiseman — I’m probably not going to give you the meat of any radio song. But the kind of thing I can contribute to that kind of music is the connective tissue; those left-of-center lyrics that you need in the verses. That’s my job when I’m in a room where I’m not the artist.”
When he is the artist, the sky’s the limit. Troubadour Blue is set to release two new singles, “Punch Line” on October 4th and “Alabama Angel” on November 12th, from their upcoming sophomore album.
Additionally, the band’s set to play a number of upcoming, one-off shows, including one at the legendary Eddie’s Attic in Georgia and Nashville’s Cannery Hall on November 7. They also occasionally make an appearance on the festival circuit, so keep an eye out for lineup announcements.
But as you do, just remember that band name on the poster is going to be a whole lot bigger in a few years.
Follow Daniel Ethridge here and listen to Troubadour Blue here.