Exploring life, love, and ambition through poetry in motion, singer/songwriter Madison Hughes’ debut album ‘All That I Am’ is a musical photograph of all that she is in this moment.
‘All That I Am’ – Madison Hughes
You wouldn’t be wrong when you first hear Madison Hughes to think you’re listening to Lee Ann Womack.
Their vocals sensibilities are hand in glove. Understated, gentle, restrained yet you can hear an anger simmering below the surface. Like Womack before her, it’s what Hughes’ doesn’t say that sticks to you. There’s a literary element to Hughes’ songwriting. Her songs could easily be short stories. Each character in each song has their own journey, which I like to think continues long after the track fades out.
Hughes doesn’t sound like a new artist. Her music and voice feels like it’s been living in your speakers for a long time. It feels settled, worn in, like a good book you haven’t read for years but you remember the feel of the pages.
Her debut album, All That I Am (released April 11) is co-produced by Lera Lynn (True Detective, Roseanne Cash, Misty Boyce) and Todd Lombardo (Kacey Musgraves, Post Malone, Ella Langley).
You may know Hughes from The Voice and performing rock & roll hits to viral covers of modern-day country singles. Raised in Jacksonville, Florida, Hughes grew up attending her mother’s local music festival, where she played some of her first shows as a teenager. On the bill were acts like Shovels & Rope, Drew Holcomb, and Lera Lynn. Hughes actually reconnected with Lynn in Nashville, who agreed to co-produce Hughes’ full-length debut album. Hughes later studied digital film production in college before moving to Nashville in her twenties.
“I got my start in music in a very DIY way – making songs on my computer and self-producing in my own little world,” Hughes tells Atwood Magazine. “This was also the first time I worked with producers, and I loved the collaborative experience—they really brought out the best in me.”
Hughes draws on southern Gothic Country, which reminds one of Lindi Ortega and Lynn herself. The album sits firmly in the Americana tradition, but don’t let that deceive you into thinking the record is genre specific. All That I Am is very much an ever evolving record as you go back and keep hitting play. The thread that runs through the ten tracks is a push and pull. It’s not always tension or a pain; it’s also a dance between two people or two feelings.
All That I Am opens with the title track, co-written with Hughes, Lynn and Lombardo. It begins as a haunting Appalachian melody, accompanied by Hughes’ understated vocals. The song then switches up in the chorus and becomes a soaring and stomping pop song. The song is a push and pull, not only in the storytelling, but also in the music itself.
He lives for the night
And I am the sun
I wanna shine my love light on him
But he’s always on the run
Oh you know there is something about
the way that he turns away makes my fire burn
All that I am gonna take all that I got to walk away
From the back of his beautiful head
His hair waving goodbye makes me stay
– “All That I Am,” Madison Hughes
“All That I Am” also happens to be Hughes’ favourite from the album.
“It’s my favorite song on the record,” She shares. “‘All That I Am’ is a true story about how my anxious attachment style affected my relationships – the push and pull of wanting something real but struggling to walk away from someone emotionally unavailable.”
“Nobody Knows Your Love” is a duet between Hughes and Brent Cobb. It’s a meandering, dreamy love song. Hughes and Cobb’s voices weave in and out of each other, when one goes in one direction, the other is not far behind it, pulling it in close and then pushing it away. Their voices dance around each other.
Whenever I lose sight of you
No matter what the miles
I’ll always hear the music
that my mind makes when you smile
Cause you are my sunshine, my red wine,
My midnight storm
And what I’m livin for
Duets are easy and hard all at once. Easy, because anyone can sing together, even if they’re miles apart technology can make them seem as if their in the same vocal booth. Hard, because not all duets are equal. Not all duets do what Hughes and Cobb do. Listening to the words and their voices bleeding together, you believe the song, you believe the feeling, you believe the characters, something that is rare to accomplish.
“This album felt like my own version of grad school, a deep dive into creating not just songs, but a whole world that felt cohesive,” says Hughes. “Ten tracks might seem like a breeze, but crafting something that truly feels like one body of work took a lot of work.”
In the penultimate tracks “So Close To Forever,” Hughes is left grappling with the end of a relationship and trying to understand how, peeling back each memory to try and make it make sense.
You were the sand and I was the sea washing the shore
So I can’t understand how we cannot be anymore
A simple strummed acoustic guitar begins “Waiting On You.” Hughes vocals soft and understated sings of the person she is and the person she is becoming, “My point of view is fading, Gettin smaller in mirror, The further that I go, I’m chasing something I can hear it, What it looks like I may never know.” The song then opens up, with the chorus rolling out like a landscape unfolding in front of you.
Wild is the wanderer
Wandering on her own
I don’t want to be waiting around
Waiting for the right words
For the right sound
Maybe it’s green i left you blue
But I can’t keep waiting waiting on you
These final tracks are about the end. The end of a love, the breaking of a promise, or the end of a way of being? Hughes’ writing is clear in some respects but she leaves enough of the details up to your imagination.
She explains, “This process (of making the record) all began right after The Voice, in January 2023, and I had very little songwriting experience. I wrote with as many people as I could and the themes all naturally wove together – mainly reflecting my dating life at the time. I grew up listening and watching Lera Lynn’s journey since I was 14, so this is the coolest full circle moment for me to have her produce and write songs for this record with her husband Todd (Lombardo).”
All That I Am closes with “Gypsy Wings,” an ode to Hughes herself. The song is about embracing herself as a creative. In the opening verse, Hughes tells us, “If you got a fire that’s burning, This town will only kill that flame, Listen to the highway callin’, if you hear it call your name,” words of wisdom perhaps Hughes wishes she had been given, or her own wisdom she still leans on. The trouble with being a creative is self-doubt walks its muddy footprints all over you after everyone else has taken a chunk out of you.
Roll like a river
Ride on the wind
Chase that shooting star so far
That you’ll never come back again
Set your sights on the heavens
And sing the song you sing
Say goodbye, find the sky
Spread those gypsy wings
Let em fly, fly away
Hughes admitted to having very little songwriting experience, but as was said at the beginning, Madison Hughes doesn’t sound like a new artist; she sounds established, confident, as if her music has been sitting on your vinyl shelf for years.
This record is a musical photograph of all that Madison Hughes is in this moment.
“It’s important to learn how to trust yourself, and that’s where this album came from,” she smiles. “It came from me. I’m so glad I didn’t try to be like someone else, because that wouldn’t be honest. I can only be all that I am.”
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© Libby Danforth
© Libby DanforthAll That I Am
an album by Madison Hughes
