Under the dim lights of Webster Hall in New York City, where the energy of Morgan Wade’s voice hung in the air like smoke, the night took an intimate turn. During a pre-concert Q&A, my husband, Marty Osterhoudt, asked her a simple but meaningful question: “When was the first time you picked up a guitar?”

Morgan’s response wasn’t just about the instrument—it was about family, resilience, and finding her voice through music.

She shared a heartfelt story about her childhood in rural Virginia, where music ran deep.

“I grew up around a lot of bluegrass music,” she shared. “My grandpa loved the fiddle—said it was his favorite instrument. Of course, that’s like the most complicated instrument to play, right?”

Her family’s love for music was undeniable, but Morgan’s first experience wasn’t with a guitar. It was with a violin.

“My mom signed me up for lessons, but it turned out to be classical violin, and it just wasn’t my thing,” she admitted with a grin. “I had to do a lot of bowing, and I was like, ‘I’m not about this.’ If you look at me now, you know that wasn’t going to stick.”

Still, she gave it a shot, even though her heart wasn’t in it. What she really wanted? A guitar. Something that felt less rigid, more her.

But convincing her mom wasn’t easy. “The violin teacher told my mom that if I wasn’t going to stick with violin, I wouldn’t stick with guitar either. So my mom was like, ‘Nope, we’re not doing that.’”

It took her grandma stepping in to change the course of her musical journey. “My grandma went out and bought me a guitar when I was about eight. I just wanted to write songs. That’s all I wanted.”

She learned to play chords, ignoring the structured path of reading music. “I hated that part. I didn’t want to read notes; I just wanted to play.” It wasn’t about perfection—it was about connection, about finding freedom in the music.

Morgan’s voice faltered slightly when she spoke of her grandma, who later battled pancreatic cancer. “She raised me,” Morgan said softly. “She’d drive me to lessons—even when she was sick. I remember she had this eye patch because she had double vision, but she’d still take me. She was tough like that.”

It was more than a music lesson—it was a lesson in love, sacrifice, and strength. The guitar wasn’t just an instrument; it was a bond, a legacy.

Listening to Morgan, it became clear that her music isn’t just born from talent but from the raw, beautiful complexity of life. From bluegrass roots to defying classical structure, and from her grandma’s quiet resilience to her own determination to create music her way—every chord she plays is a tribute to that journey.

And it all began with that first strum.