I'm a long time Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band, Grateful Dead southern rock/blues/jamband music fan.  Warren Haynes introduced me to Grace Potter 3-4 years ago, and I have been a huge fan since.  In the interim, my high school senior/college age daughter, whose bedroom is next door to my home office, introduced me to country music, to which I always swore I could never listen.  As I heard SONGS (see Phil Lesh for the definition of a song) emanating from her room, I kept finding myself laughing with complete understanding at the lyrics (grew up in small town Mississippi, on THE Highway 61).  Then I picked up on how guitar centric it is, with lots of pedal steel and/or slide.  And, if you knew my daughter, you would know that it's got lots of rhythm, because no one loves to dance more than she does.

Over the last year, I've converted to a 100% country music fan in terms of radio listening in the car (the only other alternative is talk radio), and added lots of country tracks to my Pandora, so now i've got a great blend of almost every form of American music except bluegrass on there, although it's dominated by blues, soul and rock and roll.

All that's a prelude to say that Grace would be a fool to NOT take advantage of the opportunities that life has presented her. Kenny Chesney said that he heard Grace's recordings of Apologies from One Tree Hill (wouldn't know about that either if it wasn't for my daughter), and based on that, knew that she was the right person to present the female perspective in "You and Tequila". So Apologies led her to Kenny, who is now leading her out into stadiums where there are tens of thousands of fans and prospective fans.  She's doing EXACTLY what any smart business person/entrepreneur does - take the next biggest step you can take when and if the opportunity presents itself.  

In addition, from a marketing perspective, country music is no longer targeted to the 40 year old demographic that it was 25-30 years ago.  It's targeted to teenagers and twenty somethings, and based solely on anecdotal eveidence, I'd say the bias is towards females.  You don't think that demographic will cotton to GPN?  My daughter and her friends would tell you to think again! (To whom was Apologies/One Tree Hill targeted?)

Congrats to Grace and her cohorts!