Local singer to perform at CMAO show, nominated for four awards

Olivia Mae Graham. (Contributed Photo)

Jeff Helsdon, Editor

“Have boots will travel” is the chorus in Olivia Mae Graham’s song Boots that brought her to the Country Music Association of Ontario (CMAO) awards last year as a nominee for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. Little did she know her boots would be traveling in an upward direction, and the speed she would be going.

Graham is nominated for four awards this year for her new album Nobody, and her team for another two. She will also be one of nine performers taking to the stage for the awards show on May 31 at the Port Credit Memorial Arena.

The awards show tops off what has been a fast-paced couple of years for the young singer. She opened for Terri Clark at Burning Kiln, played at the Norfolk County Fair as the opener for the James Barker Band in 2024, and just recently released her first album Nobody.

The awards nomination process began in February and moved to a final ballot, the results of which were announced March 31.

“It’s been a couple of months of wondering and waiting,” she reflected in an interview last week.

Graham is again nominated for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, an award that an artist can be nominated for twice in their career. She is nominated for Female Artist of the Year, which is a huge testament to her talent, but having her debut album nominated for Album/EP of the Year was over the top.

“I’m so proud of this album,” she said. “To see it in that category, I cried. I didn’t think that was going to happen.”

“Have boots will travel” is the chorus in Olivia Mae Graham’s song Boots that brought her to the Country Music Association of Ontario (CMAO) awards last year as a nominee for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. Little did she know her boots would be traveling in an upward direction, and the speed she would be going.

Graham is nominated for four awards this year for her new album Nobody, and her team for another two. She will also be one of nine performers taking to the stage for the awards show on May 31 at the Port Credit Memorial Arena.

The awards show tops off what has been a fast-paced couple of years for the young singer. She opened for Terri Clark at Burning Kiln, played at the Norfolk County Fair as the opener for the James Barker Band in 2024, and just recently released her first album Nobody.

The awards nomination process began in February and moved to a final ballot, the results of which were announced March 31.

“It’s been a couple of months of wondering and waiting,” she reflected in an interview last week.

Graham is again nominated for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, an award that an artist can be nominated for twice in their career. She is nominated for Female Artist of the Year, which is a huge testament to her talent, but having her debut album nominated for Album/EP of the Year was over the top.

“I’m so proud of this album,” she said. “To see it in that category, I cried. I didn’t think that was going to happen.”

She was also nominated for Music Video of the Year for Nobody. Nobody producers Jay Allen and Aaron Murray were nominated for Record Producer of the Year, and her guitarist, Nolan Gibson, is nominated for Musician of the Year.

Graham said the nominations were “cool, mind-blowing”, but more was to come. With her direction up, the boots went to the accelerator when she was asked to perform at the awards show.

“When I asked to perform, this is everything I have ever dreamed of,” she said. “For me, that was a real cool milestone.”

The Norfolk County girl will be one of nine performers for the awards show.

“With the amount of people nominated, getting on the awards show is a pretty big thing,” she said.

One thing that’s different for Graham is she is an independent artist and has no record label backing her.

“It’s cool when you don’t have a record label behind you, and you hit those milestones. I’m just proud of the team I’ve been building,” she said.

Performing at the CMAO awards is more than just another performance. Graham plans to sing a new song from her album, which hasn’t been released yet, and will release it that day. She is aware the audience will be country music fans, including a large contingent from this area, but also radio station executives and people a budding singer wants to make a good impact on.

“For me it’s a one-stop shop for a good impression,” she said.

With the awards finalists just announced a month ago, and the performers listed a week later, it’s been a “whirlwind” for Graham. She has been having media interviews daily. One of these was an on-air interview with Country 107, which was special to her because she had grown up listening to the station.

Her success is much wider spread than Tillsonburg, though – it’s global. Nobody was released Canada-wide, in Australia, and the United Kingdom. She has done interviews with stations across the country and in Australia.

Another interview was with Michelle Lee from a Nashville radio station. This was the first American station playing Nobody, and Lee told her, “Your music needs to be the center of everybody’s day.”

“Those kind of comments mean the world to me,” Graham said. “I’ve been writing songs forever. When people connect to them like that, we’re doing our job right.”

Graham has also been overwhelmed with messages of support from her friends, neighbours and local fans.

“To have a community rally around you is the coolest thing ever,” she said.

Saying it’s been a real tsunami of emotions in the past few weeks, Graham drew the analogy, “Sometimes it’s easy to wallow in sadness; we never wallow in happiness.”

Community for Graham means both Norfolk and Tillsonburg. She grew up south of Tillsonburg in Norfolk, and identifies with both communities as Tillsonburg is where the family came for shopping and any activities, and it’s where she tells people she is from. Her connections run deep to both.

Saying she was singing before she was talking, Graham started taking music lessons when she was four from Alison and Darrin Schott, who lived around the corner from her. This couple is highly regarded as music teachers, and now living in Tillsonburg, they were based at the Roosevelt Dance Hall south of Glen Meyer at the time.

“How wild was it - I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and lucked into the most incredible music teachers in the middle of nowhere,” Graham said. “They’re the reason I know anything about music at all. I owe them the utmost credit.”

Alison is assisting her with her stage look for the awards performance.

With the performance at the CMAO awards being a pinnacle she has worked towards, preparing for that night has been her focus. She recalls shopping for a dress for the performance.

“My mom and I went shopping a few weeks ago when all of this got announced,” she recounted. “We scoured the boutiques, and found the perfect outfit for the awards weekends. For me, that’s when it became real.”

But, instead of buying the dress on the spot, she walked out of the store and sat in the car with her mother, still overwhelmed with the idea of performing at the awards, and lamenting to her mother that she couldn’t believe it was real.

“She said, ‘Honey, it’s already real,’” Graham said of her mother’s response.

And then, there’s the boots: Graham had to have a new pair for the show. Tillsonburg line dance teacher Lena Kovacs is helping with customizing the look of both the boots and Graham’s entire outfit for the evening. The budding young singer teased that hanging around with a line-dancing teacher may have rubbed off, and it may show through in some manner in the future.

The question on many fans' minds is if there will be a summer tour to support the album, to which Graham responded, “There’s no slowing down over here. We’ll definitely be planning more shows. I always say it’s one song, one show, and one fan at a time has always been my philosophy.”