About an hour north of Milwaukee, the lights dim at the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts in Fond du Lac.
It’s a Friday night, and an intimate crowd cheerfully welcomes their entertainer as she emerges from behind the curtain, donning a tiered black tulle skirt and a bedazzled “Howdy” baby tee, acoustic guitar in hand. As she draws closer to the microphone stand, cowboy boots clacking, the audience falls silent in anticipation of the powerful voice that is about to captivate the room.
Wisconsin-born singer-songwriter Genevieve Heyward has built a sound that bridges the small-town stages where she first sang into a karaoke mic and the Nashville venues she now calls home. Blending folk, pop and indie rock, her music carries both the warmth of her Midwest roots and the polish of her evolving artistry.
Now, having returned to Wisconsin on tour this fall, Heyward reflects on the state that shaped her, the reasons she had to leave and how the imprints of her early life remain the overture lingering in everything she creates.
FROM NEIGHBORHOODS TO NASHVILLE
Growing up outside of Lake Geneva in the southeastern part of the state, Heyward, who is now 26, got her start in music thanks to state law that allows anyone under the age of 21 to enter a bar with a parent or guardian.
By the age of 12, Heyward was spending two nights a week at local karaoke bars, belting out classics under her mother’s supervision. Her setlist was diverse, featuring songs by The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Soundgarden, Nirvana and more.
“I never wanted to be the big fish in the small pond.”
It was during these nights that Heyward discovered her love for performing.
She’d always loved music and loved attention — a combination her mother quickly recognized as a gift.
“She was always dancing and singing, always,” says her mother, Kim Heyward.
Heyward was only 5 years old when her mother recognized her undeniable talent and passion for performing, which would eventually lead her to enroll her daughter in formal musical training.
“She started with piano lessons in second grade, and she was like, ‘Mom, I don’t want to do this,’” Kim says. “And I said, ‘Nope, nope. Once you start, you finish.’ And she thanks me to this day that I never let her [quit].”
Heyward credits her parents’ unwavering support and encouragement that is, at times, insistent, as the backbone of her success.
Despite their musical experience being limited to Heyward’s father’s involvement in a drum and bugle corps, Heyward’s parents knew their daughter had something special and it would have been a mistake to hold her back from reaching her full potential.
“I never wanted to be the big fish in the small pond,” Heyward says.
For her, music was never simply a ticket out of her small town — it was her purpose.
That’s why, two years ago, Heyward made the move south to Nashville, the heart of the music world in the United States.
NEW BEGINNINGS
Nashville has been a journey of great success for Heyward, but that success required lots of hard work and workshopping of her sound.
“I had a meeting with a label down here, and they said, ‘You’re really cute. We really like you. We like your sound,’” Heyward says. “But they [wanted] to make money, and I couldn’t make them any money. So they’re like, ‘Why don’t you start from scratch?’”
The label wanted to hear what Heyward truly had to say, not just what might get views or clicks on social media. She took that to heart, deciding to connect more deeply with her emotions and embrace her vulnerability.
Heyward removed her existing music from Spotify, started working with producers and fell in love with her music all over again. Starting from scratch — not just socially, but sonically — Heyward’s journey in Nashville became about rediscovering her sound and reconnecting with what she truly loves about music.
“I worked with an awesome producer, and ‘All Along’ was the first song I put out,” Heyward says. “I feel like everyone was kind of like, ‘Whoa. Who is this version of Genevieve?’”
“It was you all along,” Heyward sings — presumably about a romantic interest, though symbolically, the lyric feels like a quiet affirmation of her decision to fully commit to being a musician.
“All Along,” which was released in 2023, now has more than 25,000 streams on Spotify. Heyward’s success was further boosted when, in 2024, another of her singles, “Lame,” was picked up by local Nashville radio stations.
Each step she took was bringing her more clarity that what she was doing was working.
CALLING HER HOME
Although Heyward’s career truly blossomed in Nashville, her heart will always live up north.
Her shows, full of Midwestern hometown fans, are why she travels back to Wisconsin for almost every touring season.
“She’s funny, she has a sense of humor and she writes good songs,” says Roberta Jensen, a decade-long Heyward fan. “Her voice is recognizable, and she’s from Wisconsin.”
Jensen has made a point to come out and support whenever Heyward returns to Wisconsin after first seeing her perform at the 2014 Steel Bridge Songfest in Sturgeon Bay in Door County, she says.
“I’m very busy, so to get away and do something on my own — this is a rare treat,” Jensen says in the audience of Heyward’s Fond du Lac appearance.
There, between cracking jokes and sharing a few mildly inappropriate anecdotes, Heyward tells the audience in Fond du Lac about the feeling of finally being heard at her shows.
When she comes back home to perform, she says, she’s beginning to feel like the rooms she plays are true “listening rooms” — filled with audiences who came to see her, not just people who happened to stumble upon a girl with a half-decent voice.
THE FUTURE OF MIDWESTERN MUSIC
Wisconsin has always been an underrated musical hotspot. From the music venues of the Fox Valley to the stages of Summerfest, there’s no shortage of musical exposure in the state. But for many artists, like Heyward, the real breakthrough often comes from taking the risk to leave and explore opportunities outside of Wisconsin.
Michael Cooper Lee, an emerging singer-songwriter from the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, plans to head to Nashville to pursue a career in music after graduating from UW–Madison this winter. By day, he hopes to work in corporate music, and by night, he’ll focus on songwriting and performing.
Growing up immersed in Wisconsin’s music culture — his father is also a musician — Lee calls the state’s music scene “sneakily big.” The supportive atmosphere, he says, keeps him returning to the bliss of the stage, performing for the joy of it without fear of rejection.
Although Lee and Heyward are at different stages of their respective careers, their trajectories mirror each other. Leaving the Midwest — not out of dislike for the region or misalignment with their roots, but for practical, career-driven reasons — was a vital step for them.
Some people might see Heyward’s Wisconsin exodus as an excuse to distance herself from her upbringing and adopt a more commercial persona, rejecting a place that no longer served her.
For Heyward, however, that’s never been the case.
“I’m honestly in love with Wisconsin,” she says.
There is an undeniable bond between Heyward and her Midwest memories.
“I think part of the thing that shaped me as an artist from Wisconsin is that it’s kind of humbling to come from a really small town,” Heyward says. “I think one day I will move back there … I really, really miss Wisconsin.”
Feature photo: Fan in the audience of Genevieve Heyward’s show captures the moment through her phone camera. Photo by Jonás Tijerino