Carly Pearce Shares a Valuable Piece of Advice She Learned After Being Told She’d Never Make It in Country Music by Multiple Nashville Executives

Carly Pearce may have one of the most inspirational stories in modern country music. As a kid, she was a massive country music fan and wanted nothing more than to move to Nashville from Kentucky and become a recording artist. First, though, her parents agreed to move to East Tennessee so she could perform at Dollywood when she was a teenager. Finally, she released her debut album, Every Little Thing, in 2012. The LP’s title track became her first No. 1 single. Then, four years later, she released her breakthrough album, 29, and rocketed to country stardom.

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Since releasing 29, Pearce has crossed several items off her bucket list, including being invited to join the Grand Ole Opry by her musical hero, Dolly Parton. However, before any of that happened, she was told “No” and insulted by multiple Nashville labels. Recently, she took to social media to talk about the experience and share what she learned.

[RELATED: Watch Carly Pearce Sing ‘Jolene’, Honor Dolly Parton in Headlining Ryman Auditorium Show]

Yesterday (August 5), Carly Pearce took to social media to share part of her inspirational story with her fans and followers. “Don’t take no for an answer,” she wrote in the video’s caption. An annotation on the clip reads, “Things I was told before I got a record deal.

Carly Pearce Reminds Fans to Never Take “No” For an Answer

Before sharing some of the things she was told, Pearce clarified that she signed a record deal eight years ago. So, all of these things happened before that.

“I once played for a label head who told me, to my face, that I would never be a star,” the Grammy-winning Grand Ole Opry member said. “I once had someone tell me, after they’d heard five songs with ‘Every Little Thing’ on it, that I didn’t have any songs that were special. That song became my very first No. 1 single,” she added.

“I was told that I was dated because I sang country music. This was in the time of bro-country,” Pearce continued. She added that when she took a job as a backup singer for Lucy Hale, she was told it would “kill” her career. “That actually helped me start to gain fans,” she revealed.

“I was once told that I was ‘old news’ because I had lived in Nashville for eight years and everybody knew who I was,” she added. Interestingly, many artists refer to Nashville as a “ten-year town,” meaning one usually has to be in Music City working for ten years before they see success.

“For any of you guys out there with a dream or feel like it’s not going to happen for you, please listen to this and understand. It can literally happen overnight. ‘Every Little Thing’ changed my life in 12 hours.”

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