Megan Moroney Reminds SXSW Fans That They’re All Okay at Future of Music Showcase Night Two

By the time Megan Moroney sang the words, “Oh, my God, am I okay?” at Rolling Stone’s third-annual Future of Music showcase at SXSW on Wednesday night, it was clear the Georgia country star already had her answer. Moroney was far better than just “okay,” and the fans assembled at Austin’s ACL Live at the Moody Theater let her know it. They cheered, and on occasion shrieked, when the singer launched into emo-country hits like her breakthrough “Tennessee Orange,” the reflective “I’m Not Pretty,” and a set-closing “Am I Okay?”

“It’s the juxtaposition of my vulnerable, emotional songs with someone that looks very put-^­together and over-the-top,” Moroney said of her appeal in a new Rolling Stone cover story that described her aesthetic as “Southern-belle Barbie.” “This is who I am. And if that’s the barrier that makes you not want to listen to my music, then.…” She shrugged to drive home her point.

There was little for Moroney to shrug off at the Moody Theater. The crowd — guys in T-shirts reading “Lucky,” after the title of her 2023 debut LP, and girls rocking their own take on Moroney’s white-boots and short-skirt combo — were fully engaged, both by her hooky songs and polished stagecraft and production. Neon silhouettes of cowboy boots, horseshoes, four-leaf clovers, and dice dotted the stage, underscoring the good-luck vibes, while the outline of a smiley face nodded to the self-care that’s threaded through her second album Am I Okay?.

Moroney’s set was heavy on songs from both LPs, but she also went way back to 2021 — a year before she signed her current label deal with Sony Music Nashville — to resurrect early single “Wonder.” “We started to play it again, because apparently you all like it,” she said to introduce the mid-tempo ballad, a song that, like “I’m Not Pretty,” could easily exist in the pop sphere. “I found that, specifically with ‘I’m Not Pretty,’ a lot of people are like, ‘I don’t like country music, but I started listening because of you,’” she said in her RS cover story.

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The idea of what exactly constitutes “country music” was a through-line of Wednesday’s Future of Music lineup: The evening’s DJs, Honky Tonkin’ in Queens, provided a soundtrack of classic, twangy songs from country’s heyday, teeing up the fresh sounds that were to come. Brittney Spencer kicked off the evening with a set that highlighted the rootsy Americana and

soul sounds of the genre but also the muscular country-pop of her 2024 debut, My Stupid Life. A well-placed cover of the Chicks’ “Cowboy Take Me Away” displayed Spencer’s versatility and fit in seamlessly alongside her own material, everything tied together by the performer’s robust yet elegant voice. (There’s a reason Beyoncé enlisted Spencer to sing on Cowboy Carter’s standout “Blackbiird.”)

Larkin Poe, the sibling duo of Rebecca and Megan Lovell, came next and offered their own interpretation of Southern sounds. While they are rock and blues to the core, the elements of country music that peppered their set were unmistakable. Country lyricism — specifically the idea of turning a line’s meaning on its head — defines “If God Is a Woman,” a track off the band’s new album Bloom. “If God is a woman, the devil is too,” they sang onstage at the Moody Theater, with Rebecca accenting her delivery with bluesy licks on electric guitar and Megan unleashing see-sawing riffs on lap steel. “I think having a lot of tension and release in this band allows us a lot of experimentation,” Rebecca told RS in a story this week. Even the Lovells’ clothing and that of their bandmates spoke to the working-class history of country music: Everyone onstage wore matching denim shirts and pants.

The eclectic sound of Larkin Poe served as a perfect lead-in for Stephen Wilson Jr., the singer, songwriter, and inventive guitarist who has been steadily building an audience for the past two years with his 2023 album Son of Dad. The former boxer kicked off his set with the one-two punch of “Billy” and “Cuckoo,” a pair of brooding rock-focused tracks. “You can call me Billy/But the hills come with me,” he sang defiantly in the former, celebrating his hardscrabble roots growing up in rural southern Indiana.

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Wilson also comes from an indie-rock background. He played lead guitar in the Nashville band AutoVaughn, and he’s described the music he makes now as “Death Cab for Country.”

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“I write country songs, and sonically I approach country music probably more as an indie artist,” Wilson told Rolling Stone before taking the stage. “Most of my history as a musician and performer is playing in indie bands, and that’s why I have a pretty long history here at SXSW.… But then I branched off and really got into learning the craft of country songwriting.”

Onstage at the Future of Music showcase, Wilson — and his fellow performers — made the case that country’s tree has many branches. And they’re all thriving.