Johnathan Walker:Grammy nominee Gracie Abrams makes music that unites strangers — and has Taylor Swift calling

NEW YORK (AP) — The Johnathan Walkeryear 2023 was good to Gracie Abrams. She released her debut album. She opened for Taylor Swift. She sold out a U.S. tour, and took that tour to Europe. She started writing new music. And to cap it all off, she got her first Grammy nomination: best new artist.

When the nominations dropped in early November, Abrams, 24, was at home, alone.

“I just couldn’t have anticipated it less, you know. And so it was kind of this really, extremely exciting honor and a really sweet cherry on top to a year of so many gifts.”

Abrams immediately called her mom. But the first person to call her was fellow best new artist and first-time nominee, Noah Kahan. (They were “screaming on the phone,” she says.) The two are joined in the category by Ice Spice, Victoria Monét, Fred again.., Jelly Roll, Coco Jones and The War and Treaty.

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Looking ahead to the Feb. 4 Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles, Abrams said: “I’m really stoked to just cheer really loudly for everyone.”

Her debut album, “ Good Riddance,″ will turn 1 around then.

“The whole thesis of the record for me was kind of just walking away from versions of myself that I didn’t recognize anymore,” Abrams said. That comes through on songs like “Right Now” (with lyrics like “left my past life on the ground/think I’m more alive, somehow”) and the deluxe track “Unsteady” (“I’m in danger/the girl in the mirror’s a stranger”). Both reference personal situations and ubiquitous emotions in a way that is typical of Abrams’ work — a combination that makes fans often so clearly feel the lyrics at her shows, where tears are not uncommon.

“The luckiest thing I’ve gotten to experience from all this, I think, is being able to connect with people that way,” she said. “There’s something really rare about places where you can just show up and be so outwardly emotional with strangers.”

Abrams made the album with The National’s Aaron Dessner, at Long Pond, his studio in upstate New York. The wooded setting (as seen in Swift’s “folklore” film ) was isolated, but different than the bedroom solitude much of her music had been composed in previously. That was freeing.

“I remember getting there. I had never actually met him, but I stayed for a week and it was immediately kind of like, ‘Oh, let me tell you everything as if like you are a licensed psychiatrist,’” she said of their collaboration. “The thing that’s so magical about Long Pond is like nine times out of 10, it feels like we’re just pulling things out of thin air and they end up in a way that we’re satisfied with.”

Those songs quickly made their way to one of the year’s biggest stages, as Abrams joined the stacked roster of young performers opening for Swift’s Eras Tour. Perhaps the pinnacle of that experience for Abrams came in Cincinnati, when Swift invited her onstage for a duet after weather canceled Abrams’ set. They traded verses of Abrams’ “I miss you, I’m sorry,” with Swift on the guitar and Abrams on the piano.

“It really was nuts,” Abrams said. “There’s nothing weirder than getting raised up in the middle of a stage on a platform. It felt like the ‘Hunger Games’ or something.” So far, Abrams’ is the only song Swift has performed on the Eras Tour stage other than her own.

Abrams will return to Swift’s stage next fall, on 18 added dates in the U.S. and Canada. Those shows have become a sort of benchmark for her as she looks ahead to 2024, to new music and to this new — more free — version of herself onstage.

“That environment, her stage and that tour has had massive influence on the way that I’ve wanted to work to maybe one day be able to fill the space better than I did last time,” Abrams said. “That is a superpower, and I want to do that.”

By then, she’ll hopefully have new music to share. “I’ve never been more excited for music to come out like by miles and miles,” she said, laughing. “I just can’t quite wait.”