Cortney Tidwell


Cortney Tidwell is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

Personal life

Cortney Lara Tidwell was born on December 2, 1972 in Nashville, Tennessee to country singer Connie Eaton and Cliff Williamson, music producer at A&R. Her paternal grandfather Slim Williamson founded and operated renowned country music label Chart Records. Her maternal grandfather was Robert “bob” Eaton. He was a member of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1950s and was signed to Decca records. In later years he was a frequent guest on the Ralph Emery show and was known as “roadmap Bob”. On the Ralph Emery show, Cortney made her first television debut at age 5. Sitting on her mother’s lap, Emery asked her who her favorite country performer was, to which she proclaimed Conway Twitty. She then sang ‘I’m not lisa’.
Most of her family played at or was associated with The Grand Ole Opry. Her mother Connie Eaton was a celebrity in Nashville. She was friends with Jack Clement and spent a lot of time on music row in his office writing songs and collaborating with other musicians such as Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson. She was also a dear friend of Shel Silverstein. Though Connie remained in the music scene, she steadily withdrew and spent most of her time at home in the mid 1980s.
Connie, Cortney’s mother, was diagnosed with manic depression in the early 1970s, and Cortney and the family struggled to understand and cope with her mother's illness. In fact, everyone discouraged Cortney of pursuing music, but Cortney did not listen, She married and started a family while playing more guitar and singing.
Cortney's musical genes reemerged following the death of her mother. In 2004, Tidwell began recording with her husband, renowned producer and acclaimed recording engineer and musician Todd Tidwell manning the studio, often contributing his own playing and songwriting to his wife's songs. A childhood friend Matthew Zarth, also an artist, believed in what Cortney And Todd were creating and offered to fund the first run of CDs on his label ‘SISSYBRAGG RECoRDs’ Cortney and her husband put together DIY copies at home and Nashville took notice.
The Nashville scene consistently sang her praises and the late editor, Jim Ridley called her “Nashville’s real songbird”, She performed at Springwater with various musicians, but then began playing all the instruments herself at the same time due to raising the children and working
As a preschool teacher, this was the best she could do without a band. Nashville embraced the new setup and Cortney showed brilliant showmanship and determination on her own, a one woman band. She caught the attention of Lou Barlow of SebAdoh and opened a show for them to which turned into a courtship, pursuAnce from a very renowned underground Dance label k7 based in Berlin Germany.
To date, Cortney has released two full-length LPs and two EPs under her own name with City Slang records. In addition, she has also participated in a collaborative album of reimagined songs originally recorded for and released by her grandfather's Chart Records in the 1960s. featuring Kurt Wagner, William Tyler, and other members of Lambchop, under the name KORT. -Drummer Scott Martin. -William Tyler . Wyatt Mims, Aaron Thompson, Jim James also contributed.
Cortney and Todd have two sons, Elijah and Hunter, both of whom are revolutionary musicians in their own right. in their band called Jawws, Elijah proved himself at a young age as a dynamic performer and The Nashville Scene called him a cross between a young Ozzie and Henry Rollins, Hunter on drums with their friends who consistently drew praise from Nashville as being the new sons of punk.

Discography