I was born October 3, 1983 to Dale and Debbie Green.  I am 17 months younger than my sister, Gail, and we were and still are a very close family. I grew up outside a very small town called Magazine in the Arkansas River Valley at the foot of Mt. Magazine. We lived on 20 acres that also joined my grandparents’ 16 acres at the foot of a ridge (connected to the mountain). From an early age, we hunted, fished and played on that land and ridge whenever possible. I had a true love of nature from this wonderful childhood, and my sister and I would spend hours using our imaginations in the great outdoors. What else does a kid do when the nearest town is called home to only 799 people, all of which live several miles apart without one traffic light guiding the way on the long two-lane country road which made up our town? My older sister and I were so close that over time, we developed our own language, which we still know and use today! When we would visit our paternal grandparents in Booneville (just a few miles away), we went on many outdoor adventures with them as well. Fishing, long walks, riding horses and picnics were quite common. My grandmother, whom we called “Granny Carol,” constantly encouraged creativity and art by allowing us access to almost anything in her house to play with. We would dress up in crazy hats, clothes, shoes and makeup and pretend that we were on a crazy adventure consisting of safaris, pioneers, etc… At times we even painted free hand on canvas with oil paint, pictures from postcards she had, and they turned out pretty good considering we were no older than 8 and 9! She was obviously not concerned with cleaning up a mess. We loved it!

Music and education was important even before birth. When Mom was pregnant with Gail and I you could bet your bottom dollar that every night we spent in the womb was filled with words from mom’s favorite books and the latest, most soothing licks Dad had worked up on his old Ridgerunner mandolin. There was no doubt in their minds that we would grow up to read well and play a musical instrument. It was expected! Mom was a talented musician and singer, who became church pianist at 13. Dad picked up guitar and mandolin around the 9th grade. His father “Grand Sam” as we called him, had a music degree, and was from a large family who were all musically talented as well. Green family reunions were always filled with singing and harmonizing, food and fun. Dad fell in love with bluegrass at an early age. As soon as my sister and I were old enough to stand up, we had an instrument to bang around on.

Dad taught us to play mandolin, guitar and upright bass. My sister started taking fiddle lessons at age 5 and I would sit in on all her lessons and come home and learn what she had been taught that day. Mom taught us piano lessons early on, and we sang “specials” in church almost every Sunday. Sister Lila, who sat on the second row, would always give us a quarter when we were done singing, and I think this is where I figured out that I could make money with music!

Bluegrass festivals were a huge part of my life.  We went to them constantly. Here, I picked up so much from talented musicians who were willing to show me certain things on my instruments ultimately resulting in free music lessons. We started a family band when I was 6, and we traveled around singing in churches, at bluegrass festivals and anywhere else that would have us. One of my favorite festivals was the Big Bluegrass and Chili Cook-off in Tulsa, OK. We went every year. Here we were able to see and meet some of the greats, including Alison Krauss and Union Station, New Grass Revival, Tony Rice and countless others. I once had the unbelievable opportunity of hanging out with one of the world’s best female banjo player’s, Alison Brown. She told me that I should start playing the banjo because the world needs more female banjo players. That stuck! When we went home, I wanted to start playing but we didn’t have a lot of extra money to run out and buy a banjo, so dad took some old banjo parts that he had laying around and built me one. I took lessons for a couple of months to get me started, and still play today. When we were home, my sister and I would play together and write songs, and then perform them for mom and dad. We were never forced to practice; we just genuinely loved playing and jamming together in the evenings. We truly loved music, and still do.

Aside from music, my days growing up were filled with loving and playing sports and learning the value of making a dollar through various jobs I started working at age 15. As far as sports go, I played girls club basketball, softball, tennis, and just for fun, anything else that resembled a sport. I wanted to do it all! Standing 6 feet tall at age 16 I caught a couple of coaches’ eyes, so in the 10th grade, I enrolled at Boonville High School to play basketball, but by my senior year I played and had lettered for 3 years in anything that had to do with a ball or a track for that matter! When I wasn’t singin’ and pickin’ or practicing for the next big game, I was mowing lawns, working on a farm down the road, delivering pizza or working as a lifeguard at our local community pool.

When graduation came, I wanted to attend college somewhere out of state, but God was orchestrating the bigger picture for me, and I received a softball and tennis scholarship from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, AR. When I look back now, I know God had a specific plan for my life, because it was there that I met a young man named Andrew Smith. Through Andrew and his father Steve, I would eventually meet my future band mates, Dean Berner and Hannah Blaylock. Steve Smith ended up being not only a spiritual father and mentor to me, but would be the vessel that brought together Dean, Hannah and I musically. To this day, Steve remains an integral part of all of our lives and without him, Edens Edge would not exist. Steve connected all of us by inviting Dean and I to join the band he had started a couple of years prior with Hannah and her family. Over the next few years, we played around the Ozarks and before I knew it, it was time to trade in my sports uniforms and stage clothes for a cap and gown. I graduated with a degree in Emergency Administration Management but knew in my heart that creating and playing music was my destiny.

It was with a college degree, less than a few dollars to my name, and a lifetime of playing music for folks that Dean, Hannah and I decided to move to Nashville and try our hand out as a trio. Upon arriving in Nashville during the summer of 2007, first things were first, and I had to concentrate on earning a living. I had to live and dedicate myself to the “9 to 5” way of doing things but as soon as the whistle would blow it was onto writing and rehearsing with Hannah and Dean. Oftentimes there were days where I started out toting a kid on my hip at 9am and ended the day at midnight with banjo and mandolin in tow. Over the next couple of years, I worked a couple of different jobs which both centered around another love of mine - children. I started out being a nanny and from there, worked on a research project at Vanderbilt University that centered around children with speech delays. I was fortunate to find jobs that brought so many amazing children into my life, while at the same time afforded me a roof over my head and the other basic necessities of life. Although there were times during those first couple of years in Nashville, when I doubted if I would ever get that one in a million chance to actually play music for a living, I also knew that giving up was never an option. It was during this time in life that God once again taught me that if I would be willing to sacrifice and to always have faith, the path I knew I was meant to take would be made clear.

So, here I am now…  I am living my dream, I am on the path I have dreamt about since I was that little girl singing and playing around Arkansas and the surrounding states with my family bluegrass band. It was not without some ups and downs, but every step has been worth it, and I wouldn’t change a thing, because I am beyond blessed.

When I think about my life, like really think about it, I always come to the conclusion that I have had it pretty darn good. When I come upon times when I might start doubting who I am or the things I can do, I have this saying I say to myself - "Hannah, your roots run deep." There is such a unique understanding of what that means in my soul that no matter what is going on around me, I can remember the values, heart and passion that make up the girl who has been given a seed of the biggest dream possible and is doing everything imaginable to make it come to life.

I was born in Nimrod, AR. Just to clear the air, yes that is the REAL name of my town. If someone knows, please explain to me how the word ‘nimrod’ became a slang derogatory term (much like every time my Grandma says ‘thong’ I'm taken back but then realize she is talking about flip-flops). Our little town was named after a man in the Bible who was a great hunter. So just to clarify, we "Nimrodians" are supposed to be hunters for God. But I kinda like the jokes anyway. :) They make people smile and that is WAY cooler to me.

My mother, a very talented and experienced RN from Birdtown, AR, had me with close friends as midwives in the middle of a 600 acre cattle farm an hour away from any hospital in the bedroom I grew up in as a kid in Nimrod. I am the third, youngest and only girl in my family. That spells rotten doesn't it? :) And I was. Girls in the Blaylock family are few and far between. There is no doubt I have been loved and cherished my entire life. No one has done that greater than one of my best friends in the world, my Grandpa, Len E. Blaylock. He "created" the world that became the Blaylock farm and where I spent most of my childhood. He was and still is my best friend. He even has a Wikipedia! (insert link here)

To backtrack a bit and not to confuse anyone, there is a wrench thrown into this picture. My parents had this bright idea that they should leave the house my father built on that little farm in Nimrod, and go on a great adventure to explore the "last frontier of America before it disappears," as my dad would say. So the year before I was born, my family packed up and moved to Alaska. The reason I was born in Arkansas on our farm is because my family came back in the summers to visit home and I was born in July (and there you have it). Because of my parents' trades - speech therapist and nurse - there was plenty of help they could offer all the little villages in the Alaskan tundra.

We lived in several villages in our 8 years of living in the beautiful landscape and dangerously captivating nature that Alaska had to offer. My dad would fly from village to village helping children and would be gone for weeks at a time. My mother, a very unassuming, beautiful, small framed woman, oftentimes fought the harsh Alaskan winters alone with us kids and actually welcomed the challenge. Last Christmas we all sat around the dinner table and she started telling stories of her Alaskan adventures from hunting moose and caribou and extensive ice fishing excursions, to spending weeks getting dropped off thousands of miles from civilization in a helicopter with a girlfriend and my brother and floating down rivers while staying in hunting cabins. Not many people can say that they have come to near death experiences several times in their lives like my parents. Take that Man vs. Wild! This is an amazing example of the roots I reach for when I need strength and a reminder for how important it is to have a zest for life. I remind myself that that blood runs through my veins. Every time I doubt myself, I am reminded of the things my mother has accomplished in her life and I "pull myself up by my bootstraps" as she always says and keep trekking on!

With rural surrounding and encouragement to never watch TV (my mother hated it), my brother Wes who is 3 1/2 years older, and I would entertain ourselves being outside every moment we could. And when we couldn't? We played music. My mother sang at least 10 songs (I always counted) to me every night and I fell in love with the sound of the singing voice. She always says when I was 1 year old she was singing the same lullabies that she sang every night and I looked up at her in the rocking chair and started singing back every word. Personally, I think she is exaggerating a bit but I appreciate her vigor. My parents met at a music party my dad held one night in the farm house at Nimrod and they shared their musical connection with us every day of our childhood. They encouraged my brother and me to learn instruments and worked up songs with us to sing in church or to sing for family and friends. Over my life I have taken more than 7 years of piano, my dad (and Cherrill) taught me guitar lessons, even played the flute in the school band, and have spent more than 9 years singing in an assortment of ensembles and choirs. This was the start of a lifelong passion that spawned in me. I had no idea it would take me to the places it has today.
   
As my parents time in Alaska came to a close, they decided we were all getting old enough to where family support was getting more and more vital. So one summer after my 2nd grade year, we went to Arkansas for the summer and never came back, and haven't been back since. One day my brother and I will take a trip to visit the world that shaped and molded our young souls. Until then we have pictures of us as kids playing in the backyard with our landscape filled with breathtaking mountain ranges. Something to look forward to for our bucket list. 

When we got back to Arkansas my brother and I transitioned in and out of homeschooling and going to the closest school to Nimrod - Perryville, AR, which was half an hour away. My dad eventually got a job in a town called Russellville, an hour away, and I decided to attend the school there because it was bigger and they had a choir. Because my school was so far away and I was under a teacher's schedule, I didn't have time to do extracurricular activities at school like sports or go to parties with friends. I still got to sing in the choir at school and sang in all the talent shows and such. The 5th grade probably marked the first time I ever sang outside of church in public. I sang "Wide Open Spaces" by The Dixie Chicks. If I ever chose a song to cover it was theirs or Faith Hills.

I had always shown a wild obsession for horses so one Christmas my parents bought me my first horse, a little bay Welch pony named Cherry Pie who had spent her whole life in our little town and even plowed fields for my grandfather's best friend, Shake McNeal. She was in her 30s when we bought her for $350 and lived on our farm until she was well in her 50s. I did any competition I could with Cherry Pie from western pleasure to cowgirl pageants. But my favorites were the fast competitions. Barrel racing and pole bending were two of my favorite events along with speed, flags, and barrel pickup if I could find someone willing to do it! My mom, who got her own quarter horse named Mooney, and I would hook up the horse trailer every weekend and drive all over the state to horse shows every weekend. This started my passionate love for horses and I rode for many years until I went to college. Those were some of the most memorable days of my childhood. I really miss it and one day I hope I can have a farm of my own so I can have horses again. 

When I was in about junior high my family started visiting a church in Russellville. We had some longtime friends that went there and we met other families through them as well. We would all get together for holiday and birthday parties fairly often and of course, like the Blaylocks do, we would play music with whoever was willing. There was a man named Steve Smith that we played with at these parties and he also wrote all of these amazing songs over the years. So we would all play songs we knew and eventually he asked if I could sing a few of his songs. We had a blast and started getting together weekly to play. Steve heard about and entered us into a competition called The Arkansas Acoustic Showcase in a nearby town. My parents, Steve, and I sang four of Steve's songs and ended up winning the competition! We won a little prize money and even got to open for Judy Collins! This was a milestone for us because that was the moment we all looked at each other and said "Hey, maybe we can do this!" My parents had always known my dream of being a star and they worked as hard as they could to nurture that dream. So we met a friend who had a studio right outside of town and made a little record just the four of us and started playing at festivals, coffee shops, churches - anywhere they would take us. The band was called Hannah Blaylock and Lost and Found.

After playing in the area for several years, we started inviting anyone who wanted to come join in the fun. Dean Berner, a longtime family friend of the Smiths, had just come back to Russellville from college and Steve told him to start coming to practice. Dean played guitar and since Steve was covering that area, Dean's dad, a doctor by trade but talented at woodwork, built him his first resonator guitar or as some call it, a dobro. I was in awe of how effortlessly he picked up the new instrument as if it wasn't a challenge at all. About a month later, Steve's son, Andrew, who went to college in Russellville where we were, met a girl at school who grew up in a family bluegrass band her whole life and could pick anything wish strings. We asked her to start coming to practice and were equally blown away by her talent as well. With Dean and Cherrill joining the band we had definitely bumped up our game to a new level! Steve had written enough great songs for another record, so with our new comrades we went into the studio and recorded another album under a new name, Hannah Blaylock and Edens Edge. Cherrill informed us that Lost and Found was already taken by a bluegrass band and since our little business wasn't quite booming yet (AKA we were broke ya'll!) we decided it was a good idea to get a new name. Driving through the Ozark Mountains on the way to a show we were all brainstorming on a new name and as we were going past a beautiful valley in the Ozarks Steve said, "look out there guys, it looks like we are on the edge of Eden." And there you have it! Our name was born.

I had always dreamed of going to Belmont in Nashville to study the music program but it was too expensive and I got a full ride scholarship to sing in a very talented choir at the University of Central Arkansas. So while playing gigs every weekend, I went to school for three years in Arkansas. 

Steve entered his songs into these competitions at NSAI all the time and one of them on our record, called “Songbird,” caught some momentum on the Listeners Choice Award competition. It got so high that a panel of judges heard the song in Nashville. One of those judges was a woman named Kye Fleming - a historical country songwriter of many hits such as "Smokey Mountain Rain" and "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed" by Barbara Mandrell, "Nobody" by Sylvia, and even "Smokey Mountain Rain" by Ronnie Milsap. There was something in her that wanted to know about our group so she contacted Steve and found out she was born and raised 40 miles up the road in Fort Smith, AR. Coincidence? I think not! We ended up taking a trip to Nashville and playing a show for her in East Nashville, where we the three of us later lived! She was the first person who really encouraged the three of us to move up to Nashville since we were serious about trying to make it in the business. So even though it took us a little while, all our planning paid off and we made the move together in 2007. A big dream came true and I finished my degree at Belmont studying the music business program. We asked, and thankfully Kye agreed, to take us on as a development project. All three of us moved into a house together and in addition to working jobs to pay our bills and my school work, we worked hard to develop our sound. Kye helped guide us, but she was a strong believer that it was more valuable for us to find it ourselves and I’m so glad she had that wisdom. She set us up on a bunch of writes with lots of her writer friends and we started understanding the craft of songwriting. All three of us fell in love with it! Still today some of those writers are our dearest friends. Unlike most people who move to Nashville, Kye did NOT want us to play out in town. She didn't want us to be seen while we were in the middle of our development. We got so eager to show our new songs that she told us to put on shows in our living room to our close friends. So we did! We wrote and developed and practiced and wrote some more until an amazing opportunity arose. About the time we were ready to show Nashville our "stuff," Kye got inducted into the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame through NSAI. It didn't make sense that she hadn't been inducted already because of her amazing historical influence on country music but Kye said that was just because God was waiting for the right time for us. I have always thought that was such a sweet thing to say. For each inductee, they had a segment in the ceremony where people would go up on stage and sing their hits. For Kye's segment, the great Barbara Mandrell inducted her, Ronnie Milsap sang a breathtaking performance of "Smokey Mountain Rain", and we three little green turnips of Edens Edge got up there and sang a 5 song medley of Kye's biggest hits to 800 people in the Nashville music business, marking our first public performance in Nashville. That night, among the inductees, Taylor Swift was there getting an award. As a result, the president of Big Machine Records, Scott Borchetta, was in the audience and loved our sound. He wanted to meet with us the next day and we all felt like family and the rest is history!

 We Edens Edgers are finally getting to live our dream of being fulltime musicians living on the road and playing music from sun up to sun down. I know I’m a dreamer and all but I still can’t believe so many of my dreams have actually come true! We have gotten to open for living legends, play on the overwhelmingly historical Grand Ole Opry and have our music on the radio! And I’m so glad that I get to share this experience with my oldest and dearest friends. Dean and Cherrill are my family. We have been through everything together and I couldn't imagine going through a greater journey with anyone else. When I am far from home which is quite often these days, I keep photos and old memories of where this little cattle farm girl came from and I'll never forget the people that helped me along the way - and there is a long list, let me tell ya! 

 So to all the people who were champions and fought through this entire biography, I congratulate you! If you didn't know before, you know now that I CAN TALK!!!! Hahaha! I am so thankful for each and every person that is touched or moved in any way by our music. It’s the only thing that keeps us going. You are my roots. My roots run deep and you make them even deeper. Thank you for wanting to know my story. I can’t wait to one day learn about yours. 

I never knew how much being from Arkansas had shaped my identity, musical and otherwise, until I left there in 2007.  It's something of a crossroads of the South, with the mountain music of the Ozark Mountains just to the north, Memphis' rock n roll and blues just across the Mississippi River, Nashville's twang a bit further east, Texas' swang to the southwest, and Louisiana's swampy sounds to the south. I'm a country musician at heart, but I definitely feel the influence of all those styles in my playing and writing, because that's what I heard around me every day.  And really, when you listen to older country, blues, and rock, there are so many threads woven through and between them.  There's so much common heritage. When I glance back at my life so far, I feel something similar. I see a lot of common threads in the people, places, sounds and experiences that helped me become who I am today.

I was born and raised in the harmonious little town of Russellville, Arkansas.  It sits about 5 miles south of the Ozark Mountains, so you could drive for about 10 minutes from my house and be in the foothills.  If you drove another 15 minutes, you were in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere.  And that's the way we liked it, heading up to Haw Creek Falls or Pedestal Rocks to tromp around or go canoeing or fishing on the weekends.

I was born second in my family, ended up a middle child with two brothers who I consider my best friends.  My parents were both in the medical field and both my brothers went in that direction too. We always had a dog around the house, sometimes two or three. And the sound of Mom playing the piano ringing beautifully through the halls was a common thing, and I think it had a lot to do with me taking to music and also how I approached it.  Mom played because it was fun and she loved it, and it's been the same for me all along. The sound, the touch, the feeling of playing is what drew me in.  I was a quiet kid, but music helped me find a way to express what I felt.

Dad drove a big old Chevy Blazer, and he always had a few cassette tapes in the glovebox.  I remember The Eagles, Crystal Gayle and Johnny Cash in his truck, and in Mom's wood-paneled Ford station wagon it was The Beatles, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen.  Definitely some great early influences.

Piano was my first instrument, I think I was seven when I started playing.  My brothers and I took lessons from lady named Dot, a talented classical and jazz player whose house we'd ride our bikes to once a week for hour long sessions.  A lot of times, I'd learn the songs but then take them on a ride and just make up my own version as I practiced.  When I went into the sixth grade, I started playing trumpet in the school band and did that through the tenth grade.  There's an incredible energy you feel playing music in a room with 250 people, and Russellville had a stellar band program.  But all that fell away when I picked up the guitar in the eighth grade; I fell in love with it and all my energy and practice time went there.

I learned my first chords on the guitar at church.  Steve Smith, a close friend of my family, put on a class for the youth group.  There were about 30 of us in there and at the end of the class, we all played Amazing Grace in all of it's four-chord glory. I promptly proceeded to learning everything I could get my ears on, like The Beatles "Blackbird", Led Zeppelin "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", Eric Clapton "Cocaine", The Eagles "Hotel California", and Bob Dylan "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright". It was great schooling. My older brother Keith and I split time on Dad's old Gianinni classical guitar as we plunked and worked our way to being able to play.

Dad was always building things and he had a wood shop out back where he worked.  My grandfather did the same and I suppose that's where Dad got that talent.  All over my parents' house are tables, chairs, bookcases, and beds that he built, and he built them beautifully.  Mom also was an artist, mostly clay sculpture and painting.  I loved playing, drawing, and painting as a kid, and it was from seeing them build and create that I got the idea that I could do whatever I dreamt up.  When I was a senior in high school, Dad bought a Martin guitar kit and gave me a finished guitar a few months later as a graduation present.  I still have it and love playing it, and it was the guitar I wrote my first songs on.

While I was away at college, I had a couple of bands that I played in with friends, including the infamous and obscure Slim Pickinz.  We played mostly Johnny Cash, old rock and roll, and blues.  Because no one else could sing, I made my debut on vocals, and ended up really loving it.  We played at all of the illustrious venues of Conway, AR, such as Hendrix Coffeehouse and The Supper Club.  Hendrix College was where I started writing songs and began performing them in my last couple of years there. Johnny Cash, Lyle Lovett, and Bob Dylan were who I really dug into at first as writers.  They were my heroes, and the amount of passion and story they could pack into a few lyrics just amazed me.  As I learned more about writing, I noticed that so many of the songwriters I was drawn to were from Nashville, even my favorite Dylan record was made there, Nashville Skyline.  Songs are so powerful, and I found a whole new way to experience music when I figured out I could write them.

When I heard Alison Krauss' music, I was completely hooked.  Her dobro player, Jerry Douglas, is a huge inspiration to me and an amazing artist in his own right.  The vocal harmonies and incredible musicianship in that group were as good as I imagined music could be, and the idea of having that caliber of talent all in one group was something I aspired to.  Right around then Dad built another guitar for me, this time a dobro, and I was off to the races trying to learn to play it like Jerry.  It was only a few months later, in March of 2004, that Steve Smith asked me to start playing music with the band that would become Edens Edge. Steve was the man who had taught me to play guitar years earlier, which really brought it all full circle. The band included Hannah, her parents Mel and Shannon, Steve, and a couple months later Cherrill joined up. Cherrill and I had played music together at several music parties and camping trips with our friends, jamming on Alison Krauss and Beatles songs. We all had a ton of fun together in those days, playing all over Arkansas wherever they would have us. Three years later, Hannah, Cherrill and I were Nashville bound, ready to start building the dream of Edens Edge together.