Cady Danyl Groves was an American country and pop singer and songwriter. Some of her notable songs include "This Little Girl", "Oh Darlin'", "Forget You", and "Love Actually". She released four EPs during her lifetime: A Month of Sundays, The Life of a Pirate, This Little Girl, Dreams, and one full-length album Bless My Heart. Groves was recording an album at the time of her death on May 2, 2020; it was not released.
Early life
Groves was born on July 30, 1989 in Emporia, Kansas, to Carol Pettit and Larry Groves, who later divorced. She and her mother moved around and she found that listening to music helped her deal with the changes in her life. Groves's siblings were Kevan, Casey, Cody, Kyle, Kelly, and Kelsy. She also had three half-siblings, Adam Groves, Courtney Farmwald and Carrie Robinson. After graduating high school in Laughlin, Nevada at age 16, she initially wanted to pursue a career in songwriting, but did so while attending and graduating from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona. In 2004, her brother Casey died in an unresolved murder. Depressed, she took to writing songs and visiting her other brothers Kyle, then Cody, eventually moving in with the latter in Oklahoma while working to promote herself on social media.
Career
Groves turned again to music to heal from the losses. Now living in Nashville, Tennessee, she self-released two acoustic-pop EPs: the first, A Month of Sundays in 2009, and the second, The Life of a Pirate, followed in 2010. That year, Groves signed with RCA Records, and did her first national tour, on the 2010 Bamboozle Road Show alongside Third Eye Blind, Good Charlotte and All Time Low. In 2011, she released This Little Girl, which followed a single of the same name and a video featuring Blake Shelton. The Life of a Pirate, followed in 2010. That year, Groves signed with RCA Records, and did her first national tour, on the 2010 Bamboozle Road Show alongside artists like Third Eye Blind, Good Charlotte and All Time Low. Groves eventually left RCA and signed with New York-based independent label Vel Records. In 2015, Groves returned with a self-released single and video for the song "Crying Game", a dark, personal song inspired by her tumultuous childhood and strained family relationships. She then embarked on her High School Nation Tour, where she performed for over 50,000 high school students. Another EP, Dreams was released October 2016, and she completed a 30-date national tour. Groves continued to tour with LMFAO, Good Charlotte and Third Eye Blind.
Collaboration
RCA paired Groves with several producers and songwriters as she began work on her first major-label album. She collaborated with Stephen Jerzak on "Better Than Better Could Ever Be" and with Plug in Stereo on "Oh Darling", which spent five weeks on the BillboardRock Digital Songs Chart and peaked at #36. In 2011, Groves was featured on the single "You and I" by Secondhand Serenade and "All That I Need Is You" by Andrew de Torres. In 2015, a collaboration with Christian Burghardt took place, which led to the track "Whiskey and Wine."
Death
Groves died on May 2, 2020, aged 30. Her brother, Cody, said her death was due to unspecified natural causes and that self-harm and foul play were ruled out. “The world lost an incredibly, incredibly gifted songwriter who was operating at an extraordinarily high level” Sam Lansky, West Coast editor for Time Magazine, told The Tennessean after her death upon the release of her next music.
Posthumous music
Her first LP, Bless My Heart, was set to be released after Groves death in Summer 2020, but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. After Groves' unexpected death, her team partnered with Nashville entertainment brand Thirty Tigers to bring Groves' music to light on May 29 2020. The album contains the title track, "Bless My Heart," which was released as a single shortly after her passing. It also includes a cover of James Blunt's "Bartender", and "Camo," "Cigarettes and Sunsets," and a remake of her own song, "Crying Game". "If I can pick somebody else up, lift their spirits up or clear up what they’re thinking … that pushed me to really throw it out there. Because if I can feel good and be grateful after all this stuff, so can other people,” Groves said of the music on Bless My Heart.
