After releasing her album All or Nothin' and being nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year by the Americana Music Association in 2015, Nashville based country rock outlaw Nikki Lane and her band spent most of their time on the road, playing for ever-increasing crowds, working to expand their fan base, and just generally ripping things up. No surprise, then, that she got tired.

So when she went into a studio to record a new album (her third), she wasn’t pleased with the results – it was technical perfection, she says, but it wasn’t the record she wanted to make.

When her partner – musical and life – Jonathan Tyler suggested she try again with no outside producer, she was initially hesitant. But after tracking a song or two, she knew she was well on her way to a record that is, she says, the best thing she has done so far.

Highway Queen is a mixtape of an album, one with both tearjerkers and barn burners, and at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida earlier this year, Nikki Lane and Jonathan Tyler shared stripped down versions of a few of the new tunes.