Kayla Ray LIVE at The Old Jail Listening Room

Dropping a needle on Kayla Ray’s music can feel a bit like driving down a sun-baked Texas highway. You roll the windows down, feel a sticky-warm breeze circling your hair and you let the soundtrack of real-life stories fuel every mile of the drive.

And for Ray, a fast-rising Americana artist, that’s no accident. A native of Waco, Texas, Ray was baptized to the tune of Bob Wills and Tanya Tucker. She can recite Merle Haggard deep cuts without missing a beat and as a kid, Ray often tuned into the Grand Ole Opry with her grandfather, who built a makeshift antenna to ensure the family picked up a long-distance AM signal from faraway Nashville, Tennessee.

And she spent years cutting her teeth in the industry, studying the rules of the road with country music’s Gimble family (Dick and Emily, the son and granddaughter of Country Music Hall of Famer…