Ashlie Rae Parker walked into the Your Morning Drive studio still buzzing from a win, and openly, hilariously bored because of it. Two weeks removed from taking the crown at Cartersville's Dancing with the Stars, the singer and Bartow County fixture sat down with host Logan Lewis for a conversation that started as a shoot-the-shit country music debate and ended up somewhere far more personal: a Nashville record deal that never quite launched, a childhood built on musical theater, and a raw conversation about postpartum depression that Ashlie has decided she is done staying quiet about.
Bored After Winning Cartersville's Dancing with the Stars
Ashlie's husband is, in her words, "from Texas, he's just a two-stepper," so when organizer Lori Obby called to ask if Ashlie wanted to compete, there was no question about dancing with her spouse. "She called me and said, well, would you like to dance with your husband? And I said, no, I want to win." Her dream partner was professional dancer Steve Webb, and she got him, though it didn't go the way her musical theater background led her to expect. "First rehearsal, he was like, I need you to throw everything that you've memorized in your mind out the trash, because that is not the way we're dancing." The two logged 51 rehearsals starting the first week of December, all under a gag order that contestants can't be announced before the event does it officially. On the fundraising side, Ashlie blew past her own $20,000 goal, closing at $22,589 against a $12,000 requirement, while the full field of contestants combined to raise $439,000 for the community. Her biggest single donation, a beach house raffle prize from a fellow singer, came in before her participation was even public: "She was like, you can use my beach property... that literally set the tone." Weeks after her win, Ashlie admitted the sudden lack of structure had left her stir-crazy, which is exactly what led to this episode getting booked on short notice.
A Country Music Deep Dive (and the Garth Brooks Conspiracy)
Before Logan ever got to Ashlie's origin story, the two burned close to an hour arguing about country music icons: Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Patsy Cline, and Merle Haggard all made Ashlie's short list, while Taylor Swift and Beyonce sparked debate over whether "Cowboy Carter" even counts as a country album. Ashlie traced her own conversion to the genre back to a Kenny Chesney show where the openers happened to be a then-unknown Eric Church and Kacey Musgraves, and to her first concert ever, Shania Twain, at age seven. She's since built a real friendship around a chance Kacey Musgraves sing-along with a stranger while waiting tables at Longhorn, and she and Logan geeked out equally hard over rising star Zach Top, whom she discovered when her wife secretly played his music in the car to see if she could guess who it was. The conversation eventually detoured into a full-blown bit about Garth Brooks: a Tom Segura podcast joke, since escalated online, suggesting Brooks might be a serial killer because missing-persons reports allegedly cluster around his tour stops. "There's a book," Ashlie deadpanned. "Bodies in Low Places: A Serious Examination into the Allegation."
A Georgia Peach with a Nashville Record Deal
Ashlie was born in North Carolina, grew up in South Carolina, and became, in her words, "a Georgia peach" when her family moved to Cartersville in 2001, right as she started sixth grade at Woodland Middle. She auditioned for the role of Dorothy at the Grand Theatre the first week she was in town and got it, kicking off a lifetime of local musical theater alongside her two sisters and younger brother, all born roughly a year apart. Her dad, a drummer who Ashlie says was "almost famous several times in the eighties and nineties," ended up playing behind her on the road for years. After two semesters at Georgia Highlands, Ashlie chose the road over college and never looked back. The biggest break came when Lamon Records in Nashville called: she and her dad drove up and walked out with a deal, resulting in a 2010 EP. "Everybody's like, my gosh, you have a record deal, you're going to be famous for sure," she said, "but that's just not how the music world is." She still performs regularly around Cartersville and hopes to get back into songwriting now that motherhood has settled into a rhythm.
Opening Up About Postpartum Depression
The conversation's most candid stretch came when Logan asked Ashlie, plainly, to explain postpartum depression to him. She didn't dodge it. After her son was born, Ashlie experienced what she called "severe, severe postpartum depression," something she'd never dealt with after her daughter. "I never thought me, bubbly, vivacious Ashley, depressed. No way. But absolutely." It took her husband two weeks of convincing before she went to therapy, and she described the experience bluntly: no motivation, sleeping constantly, a feeling of worthlessness that blindsided her. She's since made a point of checking in on new moms differently. "My first question is, how are you? And legitimately, you do not have to lie to me." Competing on Dancing with the Stars, she said, became an unlikely part of her recovery, forcing her out of the house and back into performing. "I feel like that cured me, like completely, just getting out of the house, finding myself not only as a singer, just a performer again."
Service League, Shows, and What's Next
Between shows, Ashlie is heading into her fourth year with the Cartersville Service League, a volunteer organization founded in 1941 that has grown its annual fundraising from around $40,000 to more than $100,000 through events like a clay shoot and golf tournament, funding programs from backpack buddies to the Boys and Girls Club. She's also a room mom, a part-time social media manager for local clients, and, by her own account, still chasing music on her own terms. "Whether I made it famous or not," she said, "God is not going to rip out my vocal cords and take this talent away from me. And so it's mine to utilize forever."
Listen to the Full Conversation
This one runs the gamut, from a full debate on the modern country music canon to an unfiltered conversation about postpartum depression, with a Garth Brooks conspiracy theory thrown in for good measure. Catch the full episode with Ashlie Rae Parker on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and follow her at @AshleyRae89 for upcoming Cartersville show dates.
Listen to Episode #488
Catch the full conversation with Ashlie Rae Parker on Your Morning Drive, wherever you listen.
