Mackenzie Porter Shares the Sweetest Photos of Her Childhood on the Family Ranch
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Mackenzie Porter just released her debut album for Big Loud Records, Nobody’s Born with a Broken Heart, but the Nashville-based country pop singer-songwriter with a mesmerizing voice is already a household name for many.
Her duet with Dustin Lynch, “Thinking ‘Bout You,” topped U.S. charts for six weeks and went platinum twice. On music streaming platforms, her music has racked up over 900 million streams.
But what many fans may not realize about Mackenzie Porter is that her country roots run deep. She grew up “in the middle of nowhere” on her family’s cattle and bison ranch in Alberta, Canada, not far from the Montana border, just outside a town called Medicine Hat.
Surrounded by beautiful prairie with rolling hills, her days were filled with family: Her grandparents, parents, and her older brother and sister, as well as her aunt, uncle, and cousins, all lived on the ranch.
“I didn’t even know when I was a kid how lucky I was to grow up in a place like that, where we had horses and dirt bikes and so much room to play and roam,” Porter told Country Living.
“Our parents would just literally say, ‘Okay, come back for dinner,’ and we would go and play and it was just beautiful. Now, having my own kid, I would totally love to raise her in a place like that.” (Porter and her husband Jake Etheridge welcomed their daughter Bowen in March 2024.)
“My parents put a huge priority on music and learning how to read music and play different instruments. They put us in lessons when I was four, so I don’t really remember a time before playing music,” Porter said.
“I started violin [hence the fiddle battle at one of her recent shows], then piano. We would do little family jams, and we played classical music, and we toured a little bit. I guess they just felt like it was a really important skill to have. I doubt they ever thought that I was going to do it for a living, but I fell in love with it—specifically country music. My dad, grandpa, and great grandpa were all ranchers, and that’s what they listened to. And so I was born and bred on country music.”
Though Porter went through phases in high school with rock and pop music, it wasn’t long before she returned home.
“I fell back in love with country music because of the stories, and it’s the closest thing to home to me,” she said. “That’s why I do what I do and make the music I make.”
5 Questions with MacKenzie Porter
Is there a song on your new album that was inspired by your childhood on the ranch?
MacKenzie Porter: Nobody's Born with a Broken Heart
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MacKenzie Porter: “‘Less Is More,’ the song on the record, is about that lifestyle. I grew up the first three or four years in a trailer, and so we didn’t really have that much. That song really ties into [the idea that] having less and living a simpler lifestyle actually can be more. Now, the more success I have or money I make or whatever, it has more complications with it. So I do think growing up on a ranch or in the middle of nowhere, kind of a quieter lifestyle, can be more beautiful.”
Are there any country artists in particular who were a major influence on you?
MP: “I grew up in the nineties, so, like, the Dixie Chicks [now The Chicks] and Shania Twain and Garth Brooks. All the nineties stuff that’s so good is what we listened to, because, honestly, we were just listening to the radio. My parents didn’t have some big record collection or anything. It was all what was playing on the radio.”
When you go home to the ranch, do you still have to do chores?
MP: “I don’t have to do chores outside or anything like that anymore, but chores as far as doing the dishes and cleaning, helping my mom clean the house and watering plants—oh, yeah. She’ll put us to work right away. Even when I say, ‘Mom, aren’t we on vacation?’ she’ll say, says was like, ‘No, girl. You’re home. You’re working.’”
In a recent Instagram post, you sang Thomas Rhett’s “Die a Happy Man” to your infant daughter, turning it into a song about a parent’s love for a child. With Mother’s Day and Father’s Day coming up, are there other songs that, to you, embody the parent-child bond?
MP: “The first one that comes to my head is ‘The House That Built Me’ [by Miranda Lambert]. It ties back to the ranch and where I grew up, and how a place and the people there can shape every part of you. And when you go back, all those memories flood. I hope my daughter will come back to our place one day and have those same kind of feelings, that this is her home and this is where she had all her firsts.”
True or false: You can take the girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl.
MP: “I love fashion, and I love traveling and all that kind of stuff, so that part is more city, but I feel like, yes, you always have a little redneck in you if that’s where you come from. And that is definitely where I came from.”
How Do You Know MacKenzie Porter?
She’s had 6 no. 1 singles between the U.S., Canada, and Australia, including “These Days” and “Pickup.”
You’ve seen her on TV. She starred in the Netflix sci-fi series Travelers and was a series regular on AMC’s Hell On Wheels.
She has toured the globe opening for Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Walker Hayes, Jordan Davis, Brad Paisley, Dallas Smith, and Rascal Flatts and just wrapped her first headlining tour in Canada.
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