July 28, 2018 – There are so many people with covers on YouTube, covers of songs, covers of tutorials on how to do songs, heck, covers of covers. There’s legend that famous stars were discovered from YouTube. But does it happen now? Is it just from regular people finding the cover artists? Do record company people look for talent on YouTube? The answer is, as is typical of most answers I write here, I don’t know, but I did run into a story of a young singer whose story seems to answer yes to each of those questions.

There is a new release from another female country singer in the vein as Kelsea Ballerini, who is in the vein as Taylor Swift. Her name is Catherine McGrath, and it’s her story that I like; it’s her story that is the answer to the questions.

Catherine is a 21-year-old from the Irish countryside where they film parts of Game of Thrones, and who got her start from Taylor Swift’s song Love Story. At the age of 12, Catherine heard Love Story on her babysitter’s phone, loved it, then bought Taylor Swift’s records (there were two then) and learned the songs. She learned of other country musicians from listening to Taylor Swift’s interviews. Then she started learning and making music for herself in her bedroom, doors closed, for nobody to hear. Her parents would listen outside the door though; you gotta love proud parents. She fought the criticism of her Irish friends – country music is for 50-year-olds who drink beer and like trucks. You gotta love kids and their view of the world. But she pressed on.

As people will do, she recorded covers of Taylor Swift songs and put them on YouTube. The first one – Love Story, prompted a comment asking for more. You gotta love the kindness of strangers. She put up more and got a following.  The following is an example of an early cover — Catherine covering country singer Kacey Musgraves’ song Follow Your Arrow. I looked for her early version of Taylor Swift’s Love Story, but apparently Catherine has taken all the early songs down, so this was the best I can do, and it was really hard to find.

Catherine made song after song, built a following, then one day came a comment from what Catherine thought was an Internet troll, a man saying he worked for Warner Brothers and wanted to talk to her. She ignored him, but he sought after her friend, then her cousin, prompting Catherine’s mother to call Warner Music in London to find out what was going on. To their surprise, the message was genuine, and the sender, who was a former president of Warner Brothers, offered to be Catherine’s manager and set up songwriting sessions around London.

As one of her first tunes, following the story-telling tradition of country music, Catherine drew on her feelings from one of those dates you should never go on, apparently a newly broken-up boy with two Coldplay concert tickets in need of a companion. As music will do, concerts in particular, that particular concert made that particular boy miss his ex. The resulting feelings of Catherine about the event she put into a song.

The team then moved to Nashville, set up whatever happens in Nashville, and Catherine’s first album is now a reality. Who knows how it will do. I personally think it is very much akin to Kelsea Ballerini who herself is country’s answer to Taylor Swift, but then again, there is always room for more. And honestly, it’s a good message for the YouTube cover people out there. Keep covering, because you just never know.