By Holly Gleason

Larger than life, glowing with punk-rock energy, an electric technicolor persona and a life that informs her songwriting more than any six tabloids, three seasons of Shonda Rhimes shows and a month of Presidential briefings, Hammack is her own Roman candle of talent.

Having surrendered a full music scholarship to Belmont University for a guy who eventually left her—for an older woman who had three kids and lived in a double-wide—she escaped Georgia and summoned the grit to sleep in her car in a Walmart parking lot when a motel seemed too seedy. Later, she survived a devastating fire that destroyed her home.

The songwriter/producer/full-throttle vocalist’s positivity-seeking If It Wasn’t for You drops in August; its many highlights include the quirky, down-home “Family Tree” (where the kids “get high school high” for Sunday dinner), the Kacey Musgraves-feeling “Small Town Hypocrite” and the clever Southern-charm kiss-off “Preciatcha.”