In November, Payton Riley attended the Texas Country Music Awards in Fort Worth for the first time.
The 14-year-old singer/songwriter from Conroe and her mom, Tonia Kuehn, were seated in the back at Billy Bob’s Texas in Fort Worth, where the awards are held annually. As they listened to the singers on stage, Riley turned to her mom and said, “I want to be on that stage next year.”
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Now she’s one step closer to that goal as a nominee for Young Artist of the Year.
Others in her category include Jenna Katherine, Sadie Lee, Logan Papp and Grace Patridge.
Voting on the Texas Country Music Association website is open to the public through Aug. 15.
“From the moment she was born, she had a healthy set of lungs on her,” Kuehn said of Riley.
It was no surprise to her mom that at age 7, Riley wanted to sing and her parents — Weston and Tonia — arranged for her to take voice lessons.
At age 10, she started learning to play the guitar and became interested in songwriting.
“I had this notebook that was decorated, and I carried it around everywhere even to school,” Riley said. She’d jot down ideas for lyrics whenever they would come to her.
Her voice teacher connected her with songwriter Hannah Marie and the two began writing together. Riley’s main genres are country and Christian music.
Then came a chance to participated in a young songwriter’s camp put on by musician Kyle Hutton at Dosey Doe in The Woodlands. At age 9, she performed an original song on the Dosey Doe stage.
In 2022, she was one of the youngest singers to be invited to singer/songwriter Grace Askew’s songwriting retreat in Memphis.
She learned new writing techniques, co-wrote with seasoned artists and recorded some of her songs in the Sam Phillips Recording Services Studio — the same studio where Elvis, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison recorded.
“There was so much history. Being in that same space was so much fun,” Riley said. She got to see where Johnny Cash’s cigarette burned a hole in the studio’s piano and sit and hangout in the same space as the greats.
Last year, she released her first three-song EP featuring the songs “Boys Keep Up,” “He Chose You for a Reason,” and “Make It Sad.”
At 7:30 p.m. Friday, she’ll release her newest song, “Long Live Cowboys,” at the Table at Madeley in downtown Conroe.
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When she’s not on stage, Riley runs track and likes to hunt and fish. She’ll be a freshman at Covenant Christian School when school starts and dreams of attending Belmont University in Nashville.
She volunteers with the nonprofit Love Heals Youth, which provides mental health services to children in foster care.
The group’s founder Rebecca Smith heard Riley sing at The Red Brick Tavern in Conroe with singer Jeff Canada.
“When I heard her, I stopped my conversation and walked to the front to listen to her. I knew right then she is a very special young lady,” Smith said. Smith wrote a poem about the foster care experience and Riley turned it into the song “Love Heals.”
“Payton has a heart bigger Texas. To be so young and to have so much passion, she is nothing short of unbelievable,” Smith said.
Not only does Riley help organize social service projects and join counseling programs for the nonprofit, she also sings for children in foster care and volunteers to provide entertainment at fundraisers.
“She is adored by all of the kids she meets, and they ask for her every chance they get.”
