‘A Legend In The Making:’ Ella Langley Is A Multi-Platinum, Award-Winning Chart-Topper With An Arena-Headlining Tour

Eighteen-year-old girl walks into a bar…

Sounds like the set-up for quite a punchline. But for Ella Langley, possessing industrial strength moxie, that reality set the then-18-year-old dreamer on a path to being the break-out story last year in country music.

If that claim feels like empty hyperbole being slung like rapid fire buck shot, consider the stats. She tied Lainey Wilson as most nominated at the 2025 Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Awards – with six nominations – and walked away with four; “You Look Like You Love Me,” the triple platinum certified, femme swagger duet with co-writer Riley Green, gave her four awards from each organization. Beyond Video and Vocal Event, the song swept both the Song and Single of the Year trophies at last fall’s CMA Awards.

Ella Langley Announces Inaugural Arena Run: ‘The Dandelion Tour’

Impressive, but more than a song, Langley’s double platinum “Weren’t For the Wind” and recent No. 1 single “Choosin’ Texas,” co-written with country powerhouse Miranda Lambert, has suggested a raw country voice that speaks for those teen and 20-something girls who are more interested in being real right where they are.

When she announced Dandelion, her eagerly anticipated second major label release last week (due April 17 on Columbia Records), Langley, now 26, had spent the past two years headlining her own shows and being a coveted support act for Morgan Wallen’s stadium dates, red dirt icon Koe Wetzel’s arena tour, Dierks Bentley, CMA  and ACM Entertainer of the Year Luke Combs, Cody Johnson and Jon Pardi. Bar-honed and road-seasoned, Langley more than holds her own on testosterone-forward bills without ever losing any of the hippie glam post-Outlaw looks that’s made her the 21st century style love child of Stevie Nicks and Jessi Colter.

And about that bar? Peachtree Entertainment Partner Bradley Jordan, a veteran concert promoter and bar owner in the Southeast, laughs when he remembers. As Langley’s co-manager – with longtime Peachtree vet Megan Hinde – since before there was anything to really manage, he remembers, “Ryan Noll, who runs Bourbon Street in Auburn, Alabama, sent me a text with a picture of Ella’s business card, saying, ‘This girl’s great.’

“She’d played an off-night, some sorority thing. She was a Freshman, and evidently killed it.”

Langley has just-announced “Dandelion Tour” headlining arenas. “The Dandelion Tour,” which kicks off May 7 at Toledo, Ohio’s Huntington Center before focusing largely on the Southeast, with concerts also at St. Louis’ Chaifetz Arena, Gilford, New Hampshire’s Bank NH Pavilion and Canandaigua and New York’s CMAC. “The Dandelion Tour” will close out with three nights in Texas: Austin’s Moody Center on Aug. 13, Corpus Christie’s Hilliard Center on Aug. 14 and Ft. Worth’s Dickie’s Arena on Aug. 15.Langley is clearly on the cusp of stardom

All her success is on brand for the raven-haired singer-songwriter who is long on gumption, brimming with talent and raised in a family where music was an undercurrent, she remembers. “I walked into that club with my business card, and I said, ‘You never have to book me again, if you’ll give me one chance.’ It was a while before he called, but when he did, I made sure every girl I knew turned out.

Jordan, who’d watched his Athens, GA best friend, sometime roommate and MakeWake Management founder Chris Kappy build Luke Combs’ career, took notice. Reaching out to Langley, he offered whatever help he could provide; cautioning that Nashville was a tough place with limited opportunity for females, he and Layne Flournoy started adding her to shows by 65 South, a loose collective that promotes shows and events across the southeast U.S.

Never intending to manage, he offered feedback – “Bradley told me he didn’t like the song I had out, and because he was honest, I trusted him,” Langley says – and realized that his regional live event opportunities needed a female voice. For Langley, who’d grown up with her father’s ‘80s hair bands and old school country and mother’s Pearl Jam/Depeche Mode/New Order with a little Peter Paul and Mary, it was an opportunity to be more than just another local favorite.

Her own taste was part of what impressed Jordan about the barely 20-something. As he recalls, “I told her she needed to listen to Stoney LaRue, and her response was, ‘I love Stoney LaRue.’ She knew all those Texas country and red dirt artists.”

“We connected through Texas music,” she says of her now manager, “which is its own thing. A lot of artists I love come from that scene, so it was common ground.”

The Hope Hull, Alabaman (Pop. 7,828) who was so consumed with music, wasn’t afraid of the work. Looking back, she knows the exact moment she and Jordan clicked on a deeper level. “I’d been trying to figure out writing songs. We were riding to a show in our church van, like you do, and I was playing ‘Monsters,’ which had just fallen out. The band really liked it, so we worked it up at soundcheck. When Bradley heard it, finally, he liked one of my songs.”

These Boots Are Made For Rocking: Ella Langley performs at sold-out Billy Bobs Texas in Dallas on Oct. 18 2025 (Photo by Caylee Robillard )

Jordan kept creating opportunities. Club shows, opening slots all over the Southeast; sometimes as the female in the 65 South artists for group shows. Langley made the ultimate bet on herself and moved to Nashville.

Brian Carothers, the WME vet who’s moved to the Neal Agency, recognized the same spark Jordan had seen. He remembers, “I was booking the Southeast and saw her name on bills in Alabama. She was doing covers of Tyler Childers’ ‘Nose to the Grindstone’ and Jason Isbell’s ‘Cover Me Up’ on YouTube.

“Seeing a young, college age woman posting these songs, it wasn’t the popular thing to do. Just her and a guitar into her iPhone camera. But you could see ‘it.’ I got her number from a friend down there, texted her and she answered. It was a gut thing…”

“I was booking my own shows, settling at the end of the night, doing the social media as well as writing and playing,” the girl who spent two years majoring in forestry at Auburn recalls. “My Dad’s pretty tough, and my Mom’s not super-girly, so I’m more of a tomboy. Tough girls don’t have to say they’re tough.

“I’d always had a masterplan – to play shows and write songs. I was always an underdog, was used to things not working out, which is why I don’t like to leave things to chance or skip steps.”

To that end, even before she’d moved, Langley and Jordan focused on those Texas  markets alongside the Southeast. For Carothers, whose region included Texas, that made sense. Beyond her affinity for those acts, even today, the Lone Star State figures for Langley in a major way.

“Bradley has always said if you want to play stadiums,” the woman with over 2.8 billion global streams affords, “you have to play Texas.”

Carothers agrees. “As a Texas agent, someone who’s done that region for most of his career, Ella’s been playing those clubs, places most people don’t think about – Mavericks in Buda, John T Floore’s Country Store in Helotes. When she did her first Texas run when people started to know her, she was selling out clubs like Billy Bob’s; on Mondays, I’d hear from the bookers about massive bar sales on Friday, Saturday night.”

Lambert, who co-wrote “Choosin’ Texas” and executive produced Dandelion, says, “She comes from a world I understand and come from: the bars and the dues. You see the confidence and the sass, but also the vulnerability; that authenticity is what it’s all about. No matter what mood, or what’s going on, she is who she is – and Texans love that.”

Still, to quote AC/DC, it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock & roll. Even after moving to Nashville and co-writing a large chunk of Elle King’s bawdy Come Get Your Wife and other songs, having Carothers sign her as a client and that first tour get booked, the unthinkable happened: COVID.  Ever resilient, Langley played shows where she could, hunkered down and wrote, leaned into her faith to carry her.

Band Bolo Tie Flex: L to R: Howard Nunnelly III (drummer), Rye Jackson (bass/BGVs), Ella Langley, Ben Flanders (guitar/MD), Alex Kidd (pedal steel & utility) (Photo by Caylee Robillard)

When things began to unfreeze – Texas, especially, was an early adopter of going out – Langley found herself touring with Randy Houser, then Koe Wetzel. Driving backstage at Dickie’s Arena, the shift hit her. “We pulled up in our dirty little white van; I didn’t even have a trailer, so we had this U-Haul we’d rented. The guard didn’t believe we were on the show…”

But, of course, she was. Wetzel is such a fan of the dark-headed songwriter with the curtain bangs, when she asked him to sing “That’s Why We Fight” on her indie Excuse the Mess EP, his answer was “absolutely.” Wetzel enthuses, “Ella’s such a badass. You can tell pretty much as soon as you meet her you’re gonna want to work with her, whether that’s in the studio or on the road.”

Never mind he was a headlining arenas, he explained “I was indie for a long time, so I’ve got a lot of respect for anybody building it their own way. I came up playing shows, growing the crowd one person at a time, letting the music speak. That’s exactly what Ella was doing. She wasn’t waiting around for permission; she was creating her own moment. I recognize that hustle, and I’m always gonna respect it.”

Slowly, show by show, online clip after clip and an EP that showed her grit, Langley delivered again and again. Joe’s Bar/Joe’s on Weed Street/Windy City Smoke-Out creator and five-time ACM Promoter of the Year Ed Warm remembers Langley’s first appearance opening for Randy Houser. “Her presence onstage stopped me. I got to talk to her a little at the merch table, and I liked the sass. What you saw up there was who she was.”

By the time Langley’s 2025 Hungover Tour brought her to Chicago’s Joe’s on Weed Street, known as the northern most outpost of Texas and red dirt country, she blew out all 900 tickets. Even more, he raved, “She absolutely crushed it with this ‘70s Stevie Nicks rocking hard way of taking the stage. And it’s all ages, too.”

To Warm’s point, there is a strong visual charge to the drawling vocalist. Her clothes, her videos, her headlining presentation all come from somewhere deep inside her imagination. Working closely with stylist Stefani Colvin – and glamorizer Chris Bear – they created a singular vibe that evokes the vintage rock aesthetic of a kinetic cowgirl Stevie Nicks.

Having found Nicks through the Chicks’ “Landslide,” her mother gave the young teen her own vinyl of Fleetwood Mac and Rumors; drawing her to the intensity of Kings of Leon, Neil Young, Joan Jett and Chris Stapleton. But she also embraces that vintage sense of ‘80s country delivered by Texan Johnny Lee with “Lookin’ for Love” and soul-basted Country Music Hall of Famer Ronnie Milsap with “Lost in the ‘50s Tonight.”

Ever evolving, ever seeking to be and do more with her music, Langley delayed the release of Dandelion to make sure the album was right where she wanted it. More wide open, a little brighter than Hungover with its 460 million streaming No. 1 “Weren’t for the Wind” and the award-winning 570 million streaming “You Look Like You Love Me.”

Table For Four Ella Langley at the 2025 CMA Awards where she was the first artist to win song, single, video and musical event of the year for “You Look Like You” (Photo by Caylee Robillard)

“I always want to be further down the road with my songwriting. It comes to me music first, but I always want the songs to feel like me. I want it to feed my live show, for sure, but I also want you to cook dinner listening, to put it on when you’re just vibing or fishing on the pond.”

Pausing to make sure you’re with her – her mind’s lightning fast – she continues, “I knew I wanted Ben West to be the producer. We wrote two songs the day we met. When we were cutting, we had vision boards.

“Miranda and I wrote ‘Choosin’ Texas,’ and I felt the call to ask her to executive produce. She loves a lot of different kinds of music, like I do, and she’s been through so many of the things I’m going through. I’m not afraid to be honest, and she believes in that.”

Audacity works. Having played over 100 shows last year – along with all the promo new careers require – she sold out every show on her Hungover and  Still Hungover Tours playing to 57,000 people on her own while bringing rising females. including Carter Faith and Kaitlin Butts to open.

With everything in front of her, Langley’s ready to step into her own headlining tour. She likens what’s happening to Dandelion, her April 10 release. “Alabama makes me who I am, that’s what this record is about. Hungover got people to notice, but Dandelion’s gonna make’em sit down and eat.

“When we were talking about the album, someone told me dandelion tea is a natural detoxifier for the liver. After an album called Hungover, that felt about right.”

“She’s sure of herself,” Lambert says of the music, the touring, the vision. “It’s the good, bad, ugly, the feisty, the ‘I love you,’ the ‘Go to Hell.’ And it’s all in one record or show. She puts it all out there, shows you just who she is. I’m a Texan, but this record makes me wanna go to Alabama to see where these songs come from.”

“Truly (all of this) has just fallen out,” admits the songwriter with the words “Outlaw Woman” tattooed across her collar bone. “Me waking up in bed, hungover, showering it off and starting all over again. But it’s a little lighter, a little more elevated, because that’s where we’re going.”

It seems like everything is possible. A long way from learning “Froggy Went A-Courting” as a little girl on a piano bench next to her grandfather, Langley isn’t one to dream small. She marvels, “Think of every daydream you’ve ever had, all the things that could happen; but every day, some of them actually do.

“I have to do this, need to do this. It’s not a want. Wherever I am, I study it, soak it up. One day, I’m going to use it all.”

For Lambert, whose kept the femme firebrand spirit alive since hitting the national scene as a not much out of high school starry-eyed performer, she knows her own kind. “She has that fire in her eyes. I know what that is because I’ve had it and have it. You just know. Ella’s a legend in the making, and she’s not afraid.”