Maggie Rose

Born Margaret Rose Durante in Potomac, Maryland, in 1988, Maggie Rose grew up to become a Nashville-based songwriter whose powerhouse voice spans country, blues, R&B, and rock. After releasing an EP as Margaret Durante in 2011, she adopted her current stage name two years later and issued her Billboard-charting debut album Cut to Impress. Subsequent releases marked a deliberate shift away from country conventions: the more rock-driven Change the Whole Thing in 2018, Have a Seat in 2021, and the soul-, pop-, folk-, and R&B-leaning No One Gets Out Alive in 2024.

Early comparisons to fiery crooners such as Jana Kramer, Miranda Lambert, and Carrie Underwood accompanied her arrival on the scene. At sixteen she began performing regularly with the B Street Band, a Bruce Springsteen cover group, while still in high school. She enrolled at Clemson University but departed after her sophomore year to pursue music full time, moving to Nashville at the urging of industry figure Tommy Mottola. He facilitated her initial contract with Universal Republic, which issued her first single—a 2009 cover of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.” She departed the label the next year, signed with Emrose Records, and put out two singles plus an EP under her birth name before unveiling the 2012 single “I Ain’t Your Mama” as Maggie Rose. RPM Records released her full-length debut Cut to Impress the following year; Blake Chancey, Stephony Smith, and James Stroud produced the set. In 2014 she earned an Emmy for “Get Ya Game On,” a song she penned for Comcast SportsNet’s Baltimore Ravens broadcasts and related football coverage.

Refusing to remain confined to country, Rose expanded her work through productions and collaborations across multiple genres. In mid-2015 she initiated a weekly online series that introduced an original composition in a fresh style each Tuesday; the venture resonated with listeners, revived her momentum, and yielded the 2016 double EP The Variety Show, Vol. 1. Early the next year she issued the single “Body on Fire” ahead of the May release of Dreams > Dollars. Her sophomore album Change the Whole Thing arrived in 2018; captured live in the studio without overdubs, the record layered soul, roots, blues, traditional country, and gospel onto her established country-pop foundation.

Rose traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama’s legendary FAME Studios with Alabama Shakes member Ben Tanner, who produced both her third album Have a Seat (2021) and the 2024 follow-up No One Gets Out Alive. The latter blended her country-and-soul approach with a 1970s Laurel Canyon folk atmosphere and featured songwriting and musical input from Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit guitarist Sadler Vaden, Natalie Hemby, Sunny Sweeney, and additional contributors.