Katie Pruitt

With a commanding vocal presence and a gift for weaving compelling stories, Nashville-based singer and songwriter Katie Pruitt blends raw rock energy with folk-rooted narratives that explore religion, LGBTQ experiences, and mental health. Her reputation rests on electrifying performances and unflinching songcraft, which first drew widespread attention after her 2018 live EP and led to a contract with Rounder for the 2020 debut Expectations. In the years that followed she maintained a steady touring schedule while preparing her next project, the warmly textured and introspective Mantras, issued by Rounder in April 2024.

Raised in suburban Atlanta, Pruitt picked up guitar and began composing during adolescence as an outlet for personal reflection. Early passions for rock and punk acts soon expanded to include Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt, sharpening a distinctive songwriting voice and a soulful delivery that she honed on local open-mike stages throughout high school. As a gay teenager navigating the conservative South, she initially altered pronouns in her own material to conceal its subject matter. College brought her to Nashville, where she joined bands, absorbed the workings of the music business, and gradually forged a fuller, more authentic artistic identity. A turning point arrived with “Loving Her,” a direct love song that upended expectations and became a live staple, especially once it appeared on the 2018 OurVinyl Live EP captured with her band. She secured a Rounder agreement and unveiled a studio rendition of “Loving Her” in 2019, positioning the track as the lead single for Expectations, which arrived in February 2020.

The album earned a 2020 Americana Music Awards nomination for Emerging Act of the Year. That year she also joined Donovan Woods on “She Waits for Me to Come Back Down” and interpreted Neil Young’s “Ohio” and “After the Gold Rush.” After covering Lucinda Williams’s “Something About What Happens When We Talk” in 2022, Pruitt resurfaced in late 2023 with “Blood Related,” her first new release in three years. Crafted alongside producers Collin Pastore and Jake Finch (boygenius, Lucy Dacus), the single preceded the early-2024 arrival of “White Lies, White Jesus and You,” a pointed reflection on organized religion. Additional tracks emerged ahead of the April release of her second album, Mantras.