Sam Barber

Sam Barber’s viral rise to country-music fame surprises him to this day. Raised on a farm in a small Missouri town in a traditional, blue-collar family, Barber picked up his great-grandfather’s Gibson at age 16 and hasn’t looked back. Since 2021, Barber has been performing stripped-down covers of country-roots hits for fans on TikTok. He also wrote and released original music, including “Straight and Narrow,” his first single “Drowning,” and “Run Away High.” Despite being eliminated during auditions for the twentieth season of American Idol in 2022, the next year Barber opened events for Bruce Springsteen and Ed Sheeran and made his Grand Ole Opry debut. In 2024, he performed at Stagecoach Festival as well as a number of sold-out dates throughout the United States on his “Till I Return” tour.