Highlights From The 2021 Boots & Hearts Emerging Artist Showcase

BREAKING: Riley Taylor has been crowned the 2021 Boots & Hearts Emerging Artist! Congrats Riley – pictures and update coming soon.

The Boots & Hearts Music Festival might look a little different this year thanks to all the restrictions. But the spirit is still there, and so is the popular Emerging Artist Showcase presented by Coors Original.

The showcase at this festival is one of the most iconic in the country. It has been the launching pad for so many of Canada’s top country acts including: Tebey, James Barker Band, Jade Eagleson, Robyn Ottolini, Vanessa Marie Carter … this list could go on and on.

Needless to say … performing at the showcase is life-changing for an artist.

The winner of the showcase receives:

A single release with Warner Music Canada
The chance to perform at the 2022 Boots & Hearts Music Festival
Professional songwriting Sessions
Management sessions from Invictus Entertainment

The 2021 Emerging Artist Showcase

You know that we love to talk about indie country music, so the showcase is one of our favourite events at this festival. This year the showcase featured some incredible talent, and they all brought their A-game. The artists competing in the 2021 Emerging Artist Showcase were:

Elyse Saunders
Mike Whiteside
Andy Bast
Riley Taylor
Mallory Johnson
Jesse Slack
Jaclyn Kenyon
Buck Twenty

One-by-one each artist took to the iconic stage and performed two songs for the crowd and the panel of judges. They had about 10 minutes to impress the judges and the crowd.

The showcase is judged by 3 people. Stan Dunford – the owner of Republic Live, Vanessa Marie Carter – the 2016 winner of the showcase, and Jim Cressman – founder of Invictus Entertainment. These three had a very hard job this year. Each artist went above expectation and fought hard for the title.

After all the artists perform, the judges select two artists to go on and face off for a final performance at the end of the festival before the closing act. After that, they crown the official emerging artist.

When the showcase was over, all the artists came back to the stage and waited to hear if they had been selected as one of the final two. After an intense moment of suspense, one of they judges (Stan Dunford) came to the stage to announce that Riley Taylor and Andy Bast have been selected as the finalists. They will be performing tonight before Brett Kissel hits the stage.

Riley Taylor and Andy Bast hug — Riley Taylor and Andy Bast celebrate being named the two finalists for the Emerging Artist Showcase

These two looked so happy and surprised. Before the showcase started, they were not favoured to win. But their performances were spectacular. They had the crowd really hyped up and did a fantastic job. After seeing them perform, it was clear they were serious contenders.

Which one will be crowned the winner? We’ll find out tonight.