Emily West photo courtesy of Capitol Nashville.

Emily West’s rich, distinctive vocals and smart, emotive songs combined with her energetic and engaging presence makes her hard to ignore. Her self-titled debut album showcases the songwriting and performing skills that she has been honing since moving to Music City from Waterloo, Iowa, after high school.

A shy child in a large family, Emily blossomed when she discovered Patsy Cline. "I started to come out of my shell a little bit. I was amazed by this lady and how she sang all these love songs. It was desperate need and no eight-year-old really knows that, but I could feel the pain."

Inspired, she began entering local competitions and impressing the judges. "I finally found something where adults would come up to me and say, ‘Wow! You’re really good!’" she remembers. "I was encouraged by these big people telling me that I had a big girl voice. It made me want to keep going."

Emily and her family began visiting Nashville and knocking on doors up and down Music Row. After graduating high school Emily made the decision to move to Nashville. She had all of $562. "I had the young, dumb and stupid thing on my side and no one was going to talk me out of it," she recalls. "I didn’t even know how to pay my bills."

A month after moving she was signed to a publishing deal on Music Row. While there she caught the attention of Capitol Records Nashville when an A&R representative heard one of her demos.

After experimenting with different producers, Emily teamed with Jeremy Stover (Jack Ingram) and Mark Bright (Carrie Underwood) to bring her vision to life in the recording studio. The result is cutting and confident, forceful and flavorful, an album as vibrant and striking as the woman who made it.

Emily has poured the joys and difficulties of her personal adventures into her song writing, resulting in the impulsive sensuality of "Let’s Do This Thing," to the bruised balladry of "Blue Sky" and to the finely observed character study of "Pretty Girl."

"This is a concept record about my life," she declares. "I’m an open book. If I get really sad or excited, I can’t just put it in my heart and carry it with me—I need to talk about it. Writing songs is the same way for me."

"When I write a song I am honest," she says. "That is who I am. It’s like you’re reading my diary."

Label mate Keith Urban lent his vocals and plays guitar on "Blue Sky," the heartbreaking and poignant single that Emily co-wrote with Gary Burr. The song illustrates the pain from the split of her parents after 32 years of marriage and is told from her mother’s perspective.