Singer/songwriter
Madison Cunningham takes a literate, harmonically nuanced approach to folk and pop music. She first grabbed attention performing around Los Angeles in 2017, the same year she issued her debut EP,
Love, Lose, Remember. Expanding upon her textured, sometimes jazz-inflected indie folk, her first full-length,
Who Are You Now, arrived in 2019 and earned a Grammy nomination.
Cunningham also picked up a Grammy nomination for her 2022 EP
Wednesday. On the heels of that recognition, she returned with her second full-length, 2022's Revealer.
A native of Costa Mesa, California,
Cunningham was introduced to the guitar at age seven and grew up singing along with her four sisters in church, where her father was a worship pastor. By her teens, she was performing regularly as well as writing her own songs, drawing inspiration from artists like
Joni Mitchell,
Bob Dylan, and
Jeff Buckley. In 2017, she recorded her debut EP,
Love, Lose, Remember, with producer
Tyler Chester (
Blake Mills,
Sara Watkins), following up in early 2018 with the EP
For the Sake of the Rhyme. Those records, along with regular shows in Los Angeles and opening spots on tour with
Punch Brothers, helped widen her audience. She soon signed with Verve Forecast and began appearing regularly as a bandmember on the
Chris Thile-hosted public radio show Live from Here.
A slot at the Newport Folk Festival preceded the August 2019 release of
Cunningham's debut album for Verve, the
Chester-produced
Who Are You Now. The record was nominated in the Best Americana Album category of the 62nd annual Grammy Awards. A covers EP,
Wednesday, arrived in 2020 and found
Cunningham putting her distinctive stamp on songs by
Tom Waits,
Radiohead,
John Mayer, and others. An expanded version of
Wednesday followed in January 2022 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. That September, she delivered her sophomore full-length, Revealer, which found her working with an intimate cadre of producers, including longtime collaborator
Tyler Chester,
Mike Elizondo, and
Tucker Martine. ~ Matt Collar