About the Artist
Shelly Fairchild is a singer, songwriter, and performer from Mississippi by way of Nashville, with roots in musical theater she calls both a gift and a curse. She lost a major-label deal 20 years ago after being outed, and has built a career on her own terms ever since, singing backup for Martina McBride and Ashley McBride and writing sync music for film and television. Her new album, Sacred Southern Daughter, is her fifth and her first in a decade, recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals with producer Gary Nichols and funded by a Kickstarter campaign.
Shelly Fairchild
About the Episode (Episode 131)
Shelly Fairchild: Stay in the Queue, Buy the Tree
Shelly Fairchild had a major-label deal 20 years ago, then lost it after being outed. Host Jason English catches her on the heels of recording at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, the first album she has made in 10 years. What comes through is an artist who rebuilt everything herself and decided that being fully who she is was worth more than the deal she lost.
Key Conversation Points
Coming home after a decade: She cut her fifth album at FAME, where the carpet in Studio B has been down since the sixties. The songs circle back to where she started. "I am back in a space where it's important for me to talk about where I came from."
Building it independently: Backup vocals, sync placements for film and TV, a Kickstarter to fund the record. On surviving as an independent artist when streaming barely pays: "You just gotta get creative with the things that you do."
The cost of being herself: She lost the deal after being outed and has never hidden since. On why she can't do it any other way: "I can't personally breathe when I feel like I'm being inauthentic."
She talks about playing Maria in West Side Story, learning from how Martina McBride runs a tight room, writing reggaeton for sync libraries, and a friend's advice to stay in the queue and let people buy the whole tree. It is the kind of conversation that wanders into the corners most interviews skip. Watch the full episode below.