Alanna Mosley is a singer-songwriter from Carrollton, Mississippi. Her music—best described as Americana or roots—blurs genre lines, and her cover tune catalog spans decades. With guitar in hand, Mosley is an unstoppable jukebox of great music that invites the listener to keep humming along.
At an early age, Mosley was soaking in her music education: 90s guitar queens Patty Griffin and Shawn Colvin, country rockers like Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle, and the gauntlet of great singer-songwriters from Carole King to Brandi Carlile. She began playing guitar at the age of 12 and hasn’t quit since. Over the years, Mosley has built an impressive repertoire of cover songs while also honing her own songwriting skills. She released an EP of original music in 2014, and in 2016 she was the winner of the prestigious Jimmie Rodgers Songwriting Competition. After gigging in Charlotte, North Carolina for several years, she returned to the Mississippi Delta in full force, constantly filling her calendar with festival, radio, restaurant, and private gigs.
Mosley’s personality shines through her music—warm, inviting, down-to-earth, but holding nothing back. While she mostly performs solo, she loves collaborating with friends such as Kevin Guyer and Walt Busby (a member of the Americana band Blackwater Trio). For her, music is about emotion. It’s about connecting with her audience, and she seems to know just how to accomplish it. “I have played every kind of show you could imagine,” she says. “I’ve played straight up honky-tonks where the patrons were rowdy and expecting the music to be the same. I’ve played restaurants and events where I had to be very light and easy. It all depends on the venue and most importantly, the feel of the room… If I can move somebody or make them smile, then I’ve done my job.”
It seems that, all over the southeast, Mosley is doing a great job of connecting with people through music. Her artistry can be summed up in the words of her friend and fellow creative, Geoff Latham: “Alanna Mosley’s appeal is her warmth and clearly genuine enjoyment of sharing her musical gifts with her audience. When Alanna performs, she isn’t playing music for you, she’s inviting you to sing along and enjoy the song with her… Though her music roots are sunk deep in the loamy soil of Delta Blues, her branches cast a wide shadow over country, rock, pop, and bluegrass, and it’s a shade that begs the listener to kick off their shoes, have a seat, and stay a while.”