We continue your look at the stars of this year's Buckle & Boots festival with our next LCM featured artist, Leeds based Country singer-songwriter Jade Helliwell. Jade belongs to the fast growing group of modern British New Country artists who are challenging the previously all-conquering American Country scene. Writing and singing her own, highly acclaimed songs, Jade’s style is a notably British blend of contemporary Country, with a hint of mainstream pop music. Our LCM #TrackOfTheDay is a wonderful live version of 'Ask Me To Stay' taken from her 2016 EP 'Forget The Night'.

Growing up listening to many styles of music, Jade always seemed to gravitate back to country music. She explains, “Like any young person I loved the latest chart music and I’ve been infatuated by my fair share of boy bands and girl power, but it was always country music that really inspired me. First the old country greats like Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton, then later artists such as Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Lady Antebellum and, of course, Taylor Swift”. Jade takes all of these great artists as influence, and uses them to shape her own style. True to it’s Country music roots, Jade’s songwriting is often her way of telling stories, both of herself and of those around her.

Jade is happiest on stage playing her music live. She is constantly gigging and, along with her own regular shows, has performed at some of the best summer music festivals on the calendar such as Bingley Music Live, Oakwell Festival, Buckle & Boots and Galtres Parklands Festival with the likes of The Feeling, Human League, Dodgy and the mighty Chic! She has also been lucky enough to be invited to open up for some amazing artists such as The Christians, Thorne Hill, The Muldoon Brothers, The Dunwells, Southern Halo, Frankie Davies, Dawson Reigns, Turin Brakes, Graham Goulding and T-Rex.

In February 2017 Jade won the prestigious Yamaha Hoedown competition, securing a slot at the UK’s biggest Country Music festival, Country 2 Country (C2C) at the 02 in London. Jade is proud to be a Yamaha artist and can be seen playing a variety of Yamaha guitars on her live shows.

Her ‘Forget The Night’ EP was released on October 24th 2016, and stormed straight to number 2 on the UK Country charts on its first day of release, and reached number 47 in the iTunes UK Album charts. After unexpected success in May 2017 following a viral video of Jade singing which gained over 15 million views, her EP once again entered the charts peaking at number 1 on the UK iTunes Country charts and number 8 on the iTunes UK Albums charts.

Jade recently signed with ROAR Global management and looks forward to an exciting year including performances at FSA, Buckle and Boots Festival and the BCMA awards celebration.