York country queen Twinnie to head home from Nashville to play The Crescent and Hyde Park Book Club on Happy Hour Tour

Twinnie: New single and June tour, playing Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, and The Crescent, York

YORK’S Nashville country queen Twinnie will head home to play The Crescent on June 8 on her 11-date UK & Ireland tour, preceded by an earlier Yorkshire gig at Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, on June 7.

The tour announcement coincides with the release of her new single, Woah Man. Opening with a sassy R&B strut, Twinnie launches into anthemic pop-country territory in a rousing call to women everywhere, typified by the lyric “Close a business deal with a baby on my hip”.

Woah Man is the product of Twinnies non-profit initiative I Know A Woman, whose aim is to support female creatives with funding, opportunities and community. She wrote the song at an I Know A Woman writing camp in collaboration with John Davidson and Abby Anderson, before co-producing the track alongside KK Johnson(Dasha) and Brandon Paddock (Dan + Shay). 
 
Twinnie, who cut her teenage teeth on the York musical theatre scene as Twinnie-Lee Moore, says: “This song is a global statement to highlight the incredible women around the world in all industries, whether it be our nurses, doctors, creatives, politicians, teachers or your stay-at-home mums. It signifies the resilience and power of what it is to be a woman and celebrates all those that have come before us. 
 
“The person I think of when I sing this is a woman that raised three children as a single mother working four jobs with the help of her mum. She has dedicated her life to taking care of her children. To others she may not be a Nobel Prize winner or hold a world record, but to me she embodies what it is to be a woman and the best mum in the world. 
 
“Heavily inspired by Aretha Franklin’s Respect, Whoa Man commands a man to listen in a way that is not above each other but equal.”
 
Twinnie, 37, will play the Red Rooster Festival in Norfolk before heading out on her headline Happy Hour Tour ’25 that takes in Komedia, Brighton, on June 2; Oslo, London, June 3; Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, June 4; Deaf Institute, Manchester, June 6; Hyde Park Book Club, June 7; The Crescent, York, June 8; The Voodoo Room, Edinburgh, June 10; The Stereo, Glasgow, June 11; Oh Yeah Centre, Belfast, June 13, and The Working Men’s Club, Dublin, June 15. Tickets are on sale via https://twinnie.komi.io/. Summer festival performances will follow at Country Road, Keep It Country and Hoe Down Show Down.
 

Twinnie’s artwork for new single Woah Man. Listen at https://sl.cmdshft.com/woahman; watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpTPzdekjw0


Twinnie made her Grand Ole Opry debut in Nashville, alongside her American radio and TV debuts  on the back of her BBC Radio 2 Album of The Week release Hollywood Gypsy and her inaugural American label EP Welcome To The Club, which drew 24 million streams.

Her 2023 single Bad Man charted on US Country Radio, followed by her EPs Blue Hour (After Dark) and Blue Christmas and her ambitious 2024 double album Something We Used To Say.
 
As a songwriter, Twinnie has writing credits for Kylie Minogue, Bryan Adams, The Shires and Lvndscape and she has performed alongside Sheryl Crow, Chris Stapleton, Alexander Kay, Jack Savoretti, Lainey Wilson and Chase Rice. She is an accomplished creative director too, having won Best Short Film at the British Short Film Awards.
 
Her work as a philanthropist has been recognised by Forbes. Passionate about mental health within the music industry, her non-profit I Know A Woman contributed to standardisation for therapy for artists in the pandemic within label and publishing deals.
 
In 2024, Twinnie became one of Country Music Television’s (CMT) Next Women of Country, premiered her Lonely Long video on a Times Square billboard, in New York, and became the first British artist to perform the USA national anthem at GEODIS Park, in Nashville, on October 2.

Last October too, she joined the cast of Yorkshire soap Emmerdale in the role of Jade Garrick, having earlier played Porsche McQueen in Hollyoaks in 2014-2015.

JOY. & Brudenell Presents present Twinnie and Bonner Black at Hyde Park Club, Leeds, June 7, 7.30pm, and The Crescent, York, June 8, 7.30pm. Box office: Leeds, hydeparkbookclub.co.uk; York,  https://thecrescentyork.seetickets.com/event/twinnie/the-crescent/3297836.


“Woah Man
is a global statement to highlight the incredible women around the world in all industries, whether it be our nurses, doctors, creatives, politicians, teachers or your stay-at-home mums,” says Twinnie

Nashville rising star Twinnie heads home to York to play The Crescent after releasing second album Something We Used To Say

Twinnie’s poster for her November 28 homecoming gig at The Crescent, York

TWINNIE, the Nashville country pop star with York roots, returns to her home city on her five-date Crazy Ex tour to play The Crescent on November 28.

She will be promoting her second album, Something We Used To Say, released last Friday with no fewer than 22 tracks, in keeping with 2024’s most expansive records, Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.

Documenting the devastation of the end of her long-term relationship and her attempt to move on with the songs that featured on her Blue Hour project, the album arrives with Twinnie on the crest of a wave. She has made history as the first British artist to perform the American national anthem at Geodes Park, home of MLS team Nashville SC – “proper football, and I won’t call it ‘soccer’,” she says – in the the wake of making her Grand Ole Opry debut last November.

“It was an amazing experience, making history with my background as the first Romany Gypsy singer to sing there,” she says.

Twinnie: Making her mark in Nashville

Earlier this month, on November 2, she had the honour of performing a special Songwriter Session at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. 

On top of all that, Twinnie is appearing on prime-time television screens as new character Jade in Emmerdale on her long-awaited return to soap opera after being nominated for Best Newcomer at the Inside Soap Awards for her role as Porsche McQueen in Hollyoaks (a part she  played  from November 2014 to December 2015).

“My life has been a bit crazy recently juggling music and acting, lots of back and forth, but loving it!” says Twinnie, who made her Emmerdale debut on October 11. “I’ve loved being back on screen, especially as the show is shot in Yorkshire. Being able to be home with family and go to work on such an iconic show has been nothing short of amazing!”

Having landed BBC Radio 2’s Album of the Week for her 2020 debut, Hollywood Gypsy, exceeded 25 million streams for her first American label EP, Welcome To The Club, and released the ambitious, two-chapter Blue Hour project, Twinnie set about making her second album.  “It was recorded in Nashville, where I moved last year, and in England too,” she says.

The artwork for Twinnie’s November 8 album, Something We Used To Say

“I really put the work in. With anything I do, I try to do it 110 per cent, drawing from other artists. I’ve really honed my craft. I’ll write twice a day at different sessions, sometimes three times. In Nashville writing rooms they realise ‘she knows how to write songs’, so they guide me rather than write songs for me.

“I’m that ‘5ft 8 British girl that talks funny’ – and there aren’t many doing that! I’ve really embedded myself in Nashville, where it really reminds me of being at home, going round for a cup of tea with my grandma, whereas in London I was missing that sense of community.

“I’d been going to Nashville on and off for seven or eight years, but as soon as I moved there, I made my Grand Ole Opry debut within eight months. Jamie Johnson made that happen for me: such a class act. A complete legend.”

You can take Twinnie out of Yorkshire but you can’t take the Yorkshire out of Twinnie, after first catching the eye as Twinnie-Lee Moore on the York musical theatre scene in  her teenage days. “I’m big on authenticity. I still feel like I’m the same person,” she says. “I’m really proud to be putting Yorkshire and England on the American country music map, and my big ambition is to be the first British solo artist to have an American number one country album.”

Twinnie-Lee Moore, aged 21, in the role of double murderess Velma Kelly in Chicago, The Musical on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, in April 2009. Six years earlier, she had played Dorothy in the Summer Youth Project’s The Wizard Of Oz on that same stage

It is not a case of Twinnie jumping on a country bandwagon. “Country music is pop music, it’s in the pop culture, and I was doing it before The Shires became The Shires, when I was working with Ben [Earle] from that group,” she says.

Explaining how the album took shape, Twinnie says: “After the last two Blue Hour EPS, I wanted to put out a body of work telling people what I’d been through, being dropped in 2022 by a major label [BMG] and by my boyfriend. We had a break-up: I’ve gone independent and there was nothing keeping me there any more, so I moved to Nashville.

“I’m so glad that I did with all the experiences I’ve had, with my new album celebrating my new life, grieving my old one, moving away from my family. I don’t want to be famous; I want to be infamous and to have people resonate with the sentiments of my music. Just go for it; you only have one life, so you might as well make it an adventure. That’s why I’m going to stay in Nashville.”

Twinnie plays The Crescent, York, on November 28, 7.30pm. Box office: thecrescentyork.com.