Lindsay Ell Credits Her Third Grade Teacher With Early Love of Music

Lindsay Ell grew up playing instruments and singing, but music might have remained just a hobby if not for the support of one of her elementary school teachers.

“I started playing piano when I was six years old,” Ell recalled to PopCulture.com and other media. “I picked up the guitar when I was eight. So, music has been in my blood since I was a really little girl. But the music education programs in my schools growing up were so good, and I think they were one of the main reasons why I really fell into this as a career path. I think that if music education at the schools that I went to wasn’t as good, I don’t know if I would even be here in Nashville.

“I mean, my grade three music teacher, Mrs. Patterson, was so inspiring to me,” Ell continued. “She made me feel like I could do anything. And as a young child, you are swayed really easily to influences, good or bad. And so I think that I was just introduced to music in such wonderful ways that it was always the thing I leaned on. When something would go weird at school or with friends, or it was really stressful, I would just always go back to music and that became my therapy, my outlet, and I started writing songs.”

Ell is back in the studio, working on the follow-up to her 2017 The Project record, this time teaming up with one of country music’s biggest producers. The pairing might never have happened if she hadn’t joined Brantley Gilbert on his current single, “What Happens In a Small Town.”

“It’s been really great to debut a couple of new songs,” Ell said. “I’m getting in the studio with Dann Huff in a couple weeks. I wanted to work with Dann ever since I moved to Nashville. He’s been one of my guitar-playing and producing idols ever since I got to town. And so the fact that we got to work together on this Brantley song for the first time was a good opportunity to be like, ‘We need to do more together.’

“So I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens,” she added. “But we’ll have some new music out right after this Brantley song, with an album to follow early in the year.”

Photo Credit: Getty images / Suzi Pratt