The highway takes Grace Potter to the Ryman Auditorium on Mother Road tour

Rocker Grace Potter has driven a million miles and lived a million lives — but now, the long and winding road is bringing her to Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on Friday as part of her Mother Road tour.

Potter, a Vermont native, is known as one of the strongest female voices in rock 'n' roll. Her style and sound combines a Janis Joplin rasp with Fleetwood Mac's storytelling, Elle King's soul and Larkin Poe's bluesy allure.

Her most recent record, 2023's "Mother Road," marks her fifth studio album. Emphasizing Potter having lived a "million lives," a lyric found on her recent album's title track, she also dropped four albums with her former band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, which disbanded in 2015.

Potter has played the Ryman at least a dozen times, but she says the venue's shine never wears off. While some of her current bandmates have yet to hit the Ryman's stage, Potter has fond memories of the venue on and off the stage.

She remembers seeing Levon Helm, "many moons ago," she said, "and I was lucky enough to sit in a really, really wonderful seat near the front and just sob and cry and be a fan girl."

But Potter's relationship with Nashville started long ago. She began spending a lot of time in Music City after a music industry friend invited her down in 2005. Since then, "it's definitely become a second home," she said.

"It's one of those places where I always get noticed on the street. I don't get noticed in many places, or stopped, but Nashville does seem to consistently be one of those places ... a lot of people think I live there, which I take as a compliment."

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Potter embarked on a "dream adventure" with Kenny Chesney, joining the country singer on tour in 2015. The two still collaborate, making guest appearances at each other's shows sporadically. Potter noted that Nashville's community and talent serves as creative fuel.

And when it came time to work on her new album, she rented a house in East Nashville for over a month and got to work. "I got to know the neighbors. I just basically pretended that I was a resident of Nashville."

After her album was crafted, peppered with a variety of co-writes from Nashville's Natalie Hemby, Hillary Lindsey and Ross Copperman, Potter recorded the album in Nashville's historic RCA Studio A, which she called a "very pivotal moment."

Potter's 'Mother Road' combines rock, blues storytelling

In "The Grapes of Wrath," author John Steinbeck refers to Route 66 as the “the mother of all roads ... the road of flight.” That perfectly sums up Potter's pictorial, liberating record.

"I knew that the album itself was a concept and had an arc and a story and (was) more almost like a film idea, an original motion picture soundtrack kind of vibe," Potter said.

The album was written over a two-year span during the pandemic; Potter drove back and forth across America, alone with her thoughts.

Through her time on the road, she began to re-examine her role as a woman and mother and to dissect her fears and traumas. "There was depression. There was a miscarriage. And there was also a 'What does this mean for me in this place?'"

Potter had moved with her husband and new child from California back to her home state, Vermont. But after suffering a miscarriage and bouts of seasonal depression from coping with long and inky northern days, Potter didn't understand why her textbook "happily ever after" didn't align with deep feelings of happiness.

"None of it felt real," she said. "It didn't feel like anything that was able to actually sink in and be accepted. Because my body was turning away from me, my heart and my body were behaving very differently than my mind was telling me I should feel. And I needed to explore that.

"Vermont is a huge part of me. It's a place that made me who I am, but that also is the place I was urgently running from for the first 20 years of my life."

So Potter listened to her impulses. She packed up and hit the road — and her time on the highways brought her back to herself.

The album kicks off with title track "Mother Road," a classic rock 'n' roll tune reminiscent of Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee." With soul and grit, Potter sings "Down mother road / Once again I turn to you / 'Cause you know how I feel, mama / You've been run over too."

The album's cinematic peak comes with the song "Lady Vagabond," a western-inspired, percussive tune with the sounds of castanets and whistling melody. Potter paints herself as an outlaw character who rides alongside her ghosts. "You can call me / I won't come / Call me Lady Vagabond / Queen of the Highway / And the desert sun."

Other standouts include the '70s groove-rock tune "Rose Colored Rearview," and the energetic "Futureland," a Rolling Stones-like track where Potter screams and riffs as she wonders what the future will bring.

"The road asked me the questions that I was too scared to ask myself," Potter said, and the exploration of those questions come center stage for all to hear in "Mother Road."

As it turns out, all of "Mother Road" isn't completely released yet. Potter has more tracks that she recorded, and the Ryman's crowd could potentially hear a taste at her Friday show.

Tickets for Friday night's show are available through axs.com. Brittney Spencer is opening.

For more information on Grace Potter, her tour and her time on the highways, head to gracepotter.com.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Grace Potter followed the open road to Nashville's Ryman Auditorium