“Driving through the desert at sunset, chasing a feeling,” Annie Bosko explains, “is cinematic. All those colors as the day blazes out, the desire and the horizons make you feel like anything is possible. To me, no matter the emotion, music should give you that.”
 
The songwriter/world class vocalist knows of what she speaks. Honesty, the room for reality to spread out, the power of commitment, those are the things that spark her 80s/90s country explosion of shuffles, sweeping ballads, shitkickers and midtempos that’ll get you home.
 
California Cowgirl, her QHMG/Stone Country Records debut, was a lifetime in the making. But it’s hard to argue with the femme-forward joy and serious Telecaster guitar/pedal steel/fiddle sound that drives the nineteen songs the woman who was raised as one of five kids to a third-generation farmer stakes her claim with.
 
“I can ride a horse, a tractor and a surfboard,” she admits. “And I know my country, because we lived it. From before sunup until after sundown, my dad and grandpa were out in the fields – and we were running around outside all day. We grew up husking corn; grandpa would drop off carrots and pumpkins at school. I’d listen to George Strait, Patsy Cline in their trucks, and that all got inside me.
 
“I listened to everything growing up: Britney, ‘I Will Always Love You.’ But my mom really loved the Judds, and Wynonna’s one of the best, most soulful female vocalists ever. Deana Carter, Patty Loveless, Martina McBride and Shania? We’re talking a lot of incredible music, writing, and that’s something I want to bring back.”
 
Bosko’s passion is palpable. As a young girl attending a small conservative school, she full-tilted “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” by Shania Twain for the talent show. Looking back, “It was me in a white men’s shirt, just like the video, belting that song out.”
 
A singer’s singer, who’s attracted not just attention but meaningful support from the Maverick’s Raul Malo, 22-time GRAMMY winner Vince Gill and cowpunk groundbreaker Dwight Yoakam, the Central Valley, Californian’s love for the genre is contagious. For artists who care about the genre’s future, the dark-haired, claret-voiced musician represents someone whose meaningful roots run deep.
 
“I think many people perceive Californians as all being super slick, but that’s not always true,” she confesses. “When you’re talking California country, you’re talking Merle and Buck; you’re talking the Desert Rose Band, Gram Parsons, Highway 101, Dwight and all the cowpunk. To me, that’s some of the greatest country music.”
 
It echoes across California Cowgirl. From “Watch Me,” the chicken wire guitar, back roads opening “hold my beer” anthem, and the stout Brooks & Dunn-evoking “Honky Tonk Heartbeat” to the playful, Mexican horn section and güiro punctuated “Tequila Time” and title track’s steel-drenched declaration of who she is, Bosko offers a 360 degree sense of what modern country can be, as well as defining a woman’s place in the notoriously macho genre.
 
Indeed, her “Country Girls! (Who Runs The World)” is a stomping song written as much from need as celebration. As she explains, “I grew up going to rodeo events and I've sung at a lot of them. There are girls out there with just as much grit, just as tough, and I asked myself, ‘Where’s the song for these girls?’ There wasn’t. So I wanted to write a girl hype song, something that calls out for them! This is one for the girls, by a girl."

Self-determination is a big thing for the affable musician, who came to Nashville, went home for vocal cord surgery and waited to come back until there was a gig. That doesn’t mean there was a lag in her commitment. She continued writing, focusing on her dream and making the decision that her kind of country would draw from her roots musically and geographically.
 
Returning for a live gig, the friendly Bosko ran into Vince Gill. Talking about how twisty the journey, he gave her his number. Calling home the next day, her mother acknowledged the moment, saying, “Well, that was a God wink.”
 
She recorded a duet with Raul Malo that Randy Bernard, her eventual manager, heard on Spotify’s Release Radar. They began doubling down, recording tracks and putting them out. He also began testing her grit – at one point asking, “Can you sing at Madison Square Garden on Saturday?” It was two days away and Bosko hid that she was fighting laryngitis. A steroid shot, a plane ticket and she walked onto one of America’s biggest stages, delivering the kind of pyrotechnics that stand out.
 
Just as importantly, the then 20-something understood working with the musicians as an equal. Playing her acoustic guitar during tracking, she’s as much an agent of her sound as anyone. Calling three-time Academy of Country Music Guitar Player of the Year and two-time Country Music Association Musician of the Year nominee Rob McNelley “my ride or die,” the iconic guitarist has played showcases when it mattered, and longtime Willie Nelson vet Mickey Raphael further supplemented her sessions.
 
Her mastery demonstrates more than a pretty girl with vocal chops. As her indie music connected across platforms, Benny Brown and Jason Sellers came calling. Brown founded BBR Music Group, several publishing companies and created an alternative way of doing business; Sellers is an acclaimed musician, premiere vocalist and CMA Triple Play Award-winning songwriter who’s created hits for Kelly Clarkson, Mark Chesnutt, Lee Ann Womack, Montgomery Gentry, Rascal Flatts and Reba.
 
They recognized the depths of Bosko’s knowledge, as well as the uniqueness of her voice.
 
Uniting forces, Bosko found a team. Supplementing her own production work with Tommy Simms (Eric Clapton’s GRAMMY-winning “Change the World”) and Butch Walker (Taylor Swift, Green Day, P!nk), Trent Willmon and David ‘Messy’ Mescon brought California Cowgirl into a solid country focus.
 
“Trent really helped build the foundation and recognized how traditional country I wanted to lean – he really supported that,” she says of the man who produced Cody Johnson’s CMA Album of the Year Leather. 
 
“With ‘Messy,’ it was taking that, but getting a little outside the box. He was experimental with the idea of mariachi horns and recognized why that was important to me. Because everyone knows ‘Ring of Fire,’ but ‘9 To 5’ wouldn’t be the song it was without the horns, either. So, he gave things a little twist to keep my old school country fresh.”
 
What emerges is a sound that’s so throwback, but so forward, it does feel fresh, as well as live and triumphant in the moment. Whether it’s her “Bright and Blue Sky,” a Haggard-esque love song wrapped in strings and steel guitar, or the plucky “Cowboy Up,” which spins the catchphrase into a good-natured get it together, these are ride-or-die songs for life’s unseen defining moments.
 
“The music doesn’t necessarily sound sad, but there’s vulnerability to some of the songs. I wanted to get back to real honesty, that tender and toughness that are the people listening to country. You can have the sass, the honky tonk, the fun stuff, but it’s also in the broken and the resilience, because those rings of emotion are all inside a woman.”
 
And for being such a woman’s woman, Bosko’s heart and vocal chops have no trouble attracting the crème de la crème of male vocalists. Beyond past duet partners Malo and Gill, Darius Rucker, Joe Nichols and Dwight Yoakam all appear here.
 
“Dwight, obviously, is a friend. He is so many things, including the guy who called me ‘California Cowgirl’ on his podcast. He’s hardcore, cowpunk, cool enough Post Malone wants to record with him, but he lets me sing Buck’s part on ‘Streets of Bakersfield.’ If you want a California country blessing, he’s the guy – and our voices sound so swept up in the cinematic feeling of ‘Heart Burn.’
 
“Joe is one of those deep country voices for the ages. When you listen to him, you know it’s that George Strait elegant kind of country that makes him a classic.
 
“And Darius actually is everyone’s best friend. He’s been in this so long, he knows everyone – and you’re sure, like the song says, he’s the guy to call when you need that friend. There are so many guy-to-guy songs like this but having that grit and gravel sing this song as a friend song between a man and a woman opens a whole new way of seeing friendship between the sexes. It’s wonderful.”
 
Bosko is clearly enthralled by the colors and textures that build a rich life, just as she’s as taken by boot stomping juke music and panoramic ballads. The one thread running through it all is her gift as a singer to pull listeners into the emotions and deliver something that feels real.
 
“Listening to ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’ as a little girl, it was vulnerable, sensual, wide open. I didn’t understand, but I knew something was going on. It was like that with Shania, all the layers and truth – and she got that from Dolly. They’re all country. They’re all real. That’s what I want.”