When John-Robert left his Edinburg, Virginia, hometown (pop. 1,070) for Los Angeles in 2019, he did so with starry-eyed ambition – a teenage songsmith bypassing a Berklee College of Music scholarship to chase his own musical manifest destiny. It quickly materialized: Grammy-nominated producer Ricky Reed (Leon Bridges, Lizzo) signed him at age 19 to Nice Life/Warner Records, helping integrate John-Robert’s lilting blend of traditional folk and Appalachian country into the modern pop landscape.
His debut single, 2019’s “Adeline,” has become an 11-million streamer, and collaborations and co-signs from the likes of Alessia Cara and Camilla Cabello, respectively, have further cemented him as a deeply auspicious writer on releases like 2020’s Bailey Barely Knew Me and 2021’s Healthy Baby Boy, Pt. 1. Now, on his new EP, Garden Snake, the artist hailed as “a small-town teen poised to become the next big singer-songwriter” by Live Nation’s Ones To Watch explores the pull of his past in a captivating five-song collection, bursting with the grassroots musicality of his Shenandoah Valley birthplace and the homespun purity of his earliest songwriting endeavors.
“My dad nurtured my love of music in a way he never received himself growing up,” John-Robert remembers. “When I was in elementary school, he’d take me to sing at local fairs and open mics at coffee shops and bars. I even sang the national anthem at baseball games and MMA fights. He was always encouraging me. His motto was always, ‘the worst they can say is no.’”
