As Ashley McBryde celebrates her 41st birthday today (7/29), she is crossing the country on her headlining “The Devil I Know” tour. This evening, she is celebrating her birthday at a tribute concert in Nashville for Toby Keith, where she will be performing. Keith passed away in February after a bout with stomach cancer.

Others paying tribute to Toby in song tonight in Nashville are Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Jordan Davis, Riley Green, HARDY, Tyler Hubbard, Krystal Keith, Parker McCollum, Mac McAnally, Jelly Roll, Darius Rucker, Carrie Underwood, Lainey Wilson, and more.

McBryde was opening shows last year (2023) for Jelly Roll, and when I interviewed her recently, she told me about the man everyone is talking about. Ashley shared about her friend, “He’s so loving and so inviting. I love being on the road with him. The culture he has created with his band, crew, and everything about that is really welcoming.”

She added, “He told me my first day, ‘You’ll never feel more at home on any tour than you will on this tour.’ And I thought at first, ‘Aw, I don’t know, I’ve toured with some really amazing tours.’ He told me, ‘You’ll never feel more at home with any fanbase than you are with mine,’ and he’s right. His fan base is so diverse, and at first, when you look at a snapshot of it, you go, ‘These people don’t all belong under the same canopy right now,’ but they do. And that feeling while you’re watching a show is amazing.”

McBryde did say when you go to a Jelly Roll show, you better get there early. She noted, “They show up early, and every seat is filled. If you don’t show up by 4 o’clock, you’re not getting in your seat by the time Jelly takes the stage. Every seat is filled.”

When we chatted with Ashley before her album came out late last year, we discussed how long she has been writing her own songs. McBryde was just a child when she first realized that she was a songwriter. She said, “I think I must have been really small because I’ve been telling my mom that I was gonna move to Nashville, Tennessee, and become a country singer since I was really small, probably five years old.”

And the song’s lyrics and melodies came quickly to her. She said, “I would make things up. I would just come inside and sing what I had done. Like if I walked to the mailbox or whatever I’d seen, I’d come in and sing that to my mom.”

As Ashley celebrates her birthday today, we thought looking at five of her best music videos would be fun.

"Brenda Get Your Bra On" (2022)
This song was not released as a radio single, but it’s a banger just the same. The song was part of Ashley’s Grammy-nominated album Lindeville and features her good friends Pillbox Patti and Caylee Hammack. The video for the song reminds us of the Chicks’ late 1990s murder classic “Goodbye Earl.” It’s a fan-favorite song, and the video, with four million views, is a true classic in the making. Warning: The video content is adult-oriented – See the video here.
"A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega" (2017
This is Ashley’s debut single to country radio; while the song also hit the top 30 on the Billboard country charts, it was named one of the 54 Best Songs of 2017 by The New York Times, and one of the Top 25 Best Country Songs of 2017 by Rolling Stone. The music video, filmed at a truck stop and featuring working people, has 13 million views.
"Girl Goin' Nowhere" (2019)
McBryde was inspired to write the song based on her experience with her high school algebra teacher. She had told the educator that she planned on becoming a singer-songwriter. The teacher replied by saying that her dream was “stupid” and that she needed a backup plan. The song is the title track to her debut debut studio album.
"One Night Standards" (2019)
This song was nominated at the 55th CMA Awards for Single of the Year and Song of the Year. Filmed at the Drake Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, this song’s music video depicts Ashley working as a receptionist checking in a couple when she recognizes the man waiting outside as a friend’s father. She alerts her friend, which leads to her coming down to the hotel and confronting him and the mistress with a shovel and ends with McBryde and her friend stuffing the woman into the trunk of a car before driving away.
"Light On in the Kitchen" (2023)
This is Ashley’s first single release from her The Devil I Know album. She told me of the song’s video, “I’m so excited that ‘Light On In The Kitchen’ got nominated for (CMA) Video of the Year because that video was taken in one continuous shot. Which means the production team and everybody was there in the early, early early hours of the day, building all the sets. It’s in one big room, and then what you see is this really smooth transition from a bedroom to a kitchen scene to where the band is.”
"Never Wanted to Be That Girl" (2021) - Carly Pearce with Ashley McBryde
This is the song that made McBryde and her friend Carly Pearce Grammy winners. They won Best Country Duo/Group for this song at the 2023 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. The song featured on Pearce’s album 29:Written In Stone also topped the country songs chart on Billboard. It was the first number-one song for Ashley, and the two performed it together at the CMA Awards.