Studio Session: Erika Nalow on finding her place in Americana music

Nashville-based songwriter Erika Nalow visited the WYSO studios for a live performance on Kaleidoscope and talked with music director Juliet Fromholt about her journey as a musician.

Erika Nalow began playing guitar at age six. Growing up just east of Cleveland, Ohio, Nalow quickly realized that music was what she wanted to do with her life and eventually studied it at Bowling Green State University. After college, she relocated to Nashville.

“From being in Nashville I kind of found out about this whole world of acoustic music. And that was sort of finally like the landing spot where I was like, ‘all these songs that I’ve been writing that I really didn’t know how to categorize, they all fit here,'” she says.

In addition to being a songwriter, Nalow also made her way into the Americana scene in Nashville as an audio engineer and session musician. But lately, she’s thinking about how to prioritize her own songwriting alongside her other musical pursuits.

“That’s been kind of my goal these last few years, is both playing my own stuff out more and kind of stepping into that space more as a songwriter and also as a guitar player. I still really love to play guitar with other people, so half the time I’m playing gigs on guitar for other folks and that’s still something I really love to do.

As I’ve gotten older and more into songs, I really love songwriting and I really admire songwriters, you know, and especially in Americana music. The song is king like, that’s kind of the whole point is like the storytelling aspect of Americana music. That’s kind of what bridges the gap between blues, Americana artists and like indie folk, Americana artists is this common thread of storytelling, and it is different from other genres too, because a lot of times the person telling the story, the singer is the writer of that song. So this is really been a shift for me in the last like 2 or 3 years where I had written all these songs that I’m like, ‘you know, if anyone’s ever going to hear them, I have to be the one to sing them.’ So that’s what I’m doing.”

Nalow released a single, “With You,” earlier this year and hopes to record more in 2025. Follow her at

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