There’s always been a lot of fight in Ashley Cooke. Certainly, the Florida native has fought for her place in the country music industry and battled her way to the top of the charts with her summer spitfire hit, “Your Place.” But the internal and emotional brawl she found herself in over the past few months has been like nothing she’s faced before.
“This whole year has been such a whirlwind blur,” Cooke says in a telephone interview. “I’m trying my absolute hardest to grasp onto the moments that I can, to really take it in and be present, too.”
Not only has Cooke been dealing with a bout of the flu, a sad relationship breakup, and the weariness that comes from being out on the road on back-to-back tours, but she also lost both of her grandmothers in recent weeks. Luckily, the stage serves as a safe refuge of sorts.
“There’s nothing like getting on stages with people packed in those rooms to see us,” says Cooke, who began 2024 in Europe opening for country music hitmaker Jordan Davis. “There’s a whole new level of energy and excitement, and really it’s been such a reward even in an exhausting season. What keeps putting gas in my tank is to just play these songs for people who sing along to every single word.”
They’re the moments Cooke says she has long dreamed of. “It was one of those things where I didn’t know what my life was going to look like but I always knew I wanted to be an artist,” she says. “Honestly, it’s been such an honor to open up for some amazing acts throughout the last couple of years.”
Those headliner acts read like a list of country music’s most powerful personalities, including Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan, Cole Swindell, and Brett Young. But being on her own 25-stop headlining tour and bringing along her own opening act, Greylan James, is a new dream coming true, she says. The Your Place Tour stops at Bogart’s on November 16.
“There really is just nothing quite like knowing a room full of people purchased a ticket to come see you and your band play live,” says Cooke, who in June became just the second solo female artist in 2024 to reach the coveted No. 1 spot on the country chart. “That’s the reason that they got the babysitter and took the day off work or whatever to come see you play. It really means the world to me that they care and are showing up. Such a small percent of people actually get to do what I’m doing. But, yeah, we’re doing this. This is reality.”
Cooke, 27, says she’s excited to see the audience that will attend her Bogart’s show near the UC campus, as it was that type of “college crowd” setting that served as her reality not so long ago. “You don’t even realize in college just how much fun it is,” she says, noting she graduated in 2019 from Belmont University in Nashville with a degree in corporate communications. “When you’re in college, you just say yes to everything you can, especially when it comes to concerts. You just never know if you’re going to find a new favorite artist you don’t even know existed five hours before.”
She’s hoping to make some more Cincinnati fans in that exact way. “I really hope we have some kids that maybe have never heard of me or my music that stumble into the show at Bogart’s and decide they want to follow the journey,” says Cooke, who is rounding out her already successful year by creating new music she hopes will soon find itself on the follow-up to her 24-song debut album, Shot in the Dark.
“I’ve always loved songwriting, and I would like to think that whether I was an artist or not I’d always be creating and writing music,” she says. “It felt like a natural born calling, and I’m really thankful all the steps led to where I am right now. I just feel like I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”
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