About the artist
Raechel Whitchurch recently went to jail… to play her music for the inmates, where she made them laugh, cry and celebrate, but that’s only a small part of the story. The 4x CMAA Golden Guitar nominee recently released her second album ‘what a time to be alive’ (May 2024) produced by Matt Fell, which debuted at #1 on the Australian Country ARIA charts and the AIR charts, and #4 on the all-genre ARIA Australian Album charts. This follows her debut ‘Finally Clear’ which earned her 2 of those Golden Guitar nominations, (including Best New Talent) and landed her a record deal with Compass Bros Records (Universal) – no small feat for a self-managed, booked and funded artist.
Cutting her teeth touring Australia in her family band ‘The Lees’ as a child, Raechel developed a respect for truth, tradition, and self-belief. This in turn informed her raw, yet reverent songwriting style where nothing is sugar-coated, as shown on the stand-out title track “what a time to be alive’ which confronts her own miscarriage. She has developed her own style that straddles alt-country and old-school country, whilst reflecting her own new take on things.
Not one to waste time, Raechel (who also runs her own highly-successful boutique booking agency, ‘Sure Thing Agency’) recently performed all over Australia with the likes of Ian Moss, The Whitlams, Shane Nicholson, and Felicity Urquhart & Josh Cunningham, and appeared at iconic country festivals, including the Gympie Muster, Groundwater Country Music Festival, Tamworth Country Music Festival, Deni Ute Muster, and Savannah in the Round. In 2024, she made her international performance debut at ‘Your Roots Are Showing’, Ireland’s biggest folk conference, as well as opening up for Fanny Lumsden on her New Zealand tour.
Raechel will surprise you, disarming you with her wit, and raw truth and leave you feeling somehow connected to something bigger than yourself. She takes the ordinary and makes it feel extraordinary. It’s giving hope.
