Crystal Bowersox

Crystal Bowersox, a northwest Ohio native currently calling Nashville home, has built her life around music. Crystal’s love for music developed at an early age, from a need to find peace in a chaotic world. Through art and creation, Crystal was able to direct her energy and emotion, finding a way to mend a mind in turmoil. For her, music was always the most effective form of catharsis, and she would play for anyone, anywhere. In her own words, “my guitar was an appendage. I couldn’t live without it.”

Dead set on a career in music, Crystal moved to Chicago as a teenager, spending her days performing underground on subway platforms between working odd jobs. There she broadened her musical horizons and shared her talents in a variety of venues, ultimately auditioning for American Idol. Crystal’s time on the show proved to be well spent—she immediately left the soundstage for the recording studio. Since then, she has released three LPs, two EPs, and several singles and is currently developing Trauma Queen, an autobiographical theatrical rock concert. Additionally, she has used her talents to benefit several causes close to her heart, including becoming an advocate and inspiration for people with Type 1 diabetes.

To create her latest LP, Alive, Crystal called on her “chosen family” of musicians and drew upon her influences—folk-pop, classic rock, soul, blues, and country—to make music that resonates with her spirit. It is both tender and tough, rough yet polished. And Crystal’s voice, as one of her songwriting partners describes it, is “like dirt and diamonds.”

Crystal intends to make music with healing power. At this point, she sees far beyond her own troubles, but by reliving her own painful moments in song, she hopes to transcend that pain, lifting both herself and her audience to a higher place. In the opening lines of “A Broken Wing” she sings, “I know there’s beauty in the burden / And even on my darkest day that sun will shine.” Crystal’s story is one of resilience and perseverance, and it’s evident in every note of Alive.