Alli Walker

Alli Walker, a Canadian singer and songwriter, fuses contemporary country with pop. Her introduction to listeners arrived in 2019 through the release of The Basement Sessions: What I've Learned. For the 2023 follow-up Growing Up, she crowdsourced the track selection via social media, allowing fans to determine which songs would make the final cut.

Born and raised in Prince Edward Island, the modest Canadian province, Walker channeled her childhood energy into ballet, drumming, softball, and bagpipe. Securing the lead in a school production sparked a deeper commitment to music, prompting her to pursue classical studies as a vocal major. She simultaneously took up guitar and bass while sharpening acting abilities. Influences from Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, Brad Paisley, and Gretchen Wilson nurtured her country affinity, leading her at age 19 to relocate to Toronto with only her guitar in pursuit of a professional path. A decade of club dates and songwriting refinement preceded her self-recorded and self-released debut, The Basement Sessions: What I've Learned, in 2019. The album, which chronicled her battle for recognition, quickly built an audience.

Intended sessions for the next record in Nashville during early 2020 were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, so she remained in Ontario to generate new material. For the first time she posted song demos online and let supporters vote on the recordings. Remote work with producer Danick Dupelle allowed her to track the songs in her own studio, after which he supplied the finishing touches. Growing Up appeared at the start of 2023.

Toward the close of that year she returned to bagpipe, an instrument that had once carried her to multiple competitions in childhood, and wrote the country/sea shanty “The Whiskey’s Gone.” The track spread rapidly across social platforms with millions of views and shares, prompting Walker to move to Nashville and focus on her third album.