Tami Neilson and Her ‘Neon Cowgirl’ Shines Bright

Some dreams haunt you. Others hold your hand for a lifetime — flickering just out of reach until, one day, the light finally shines your way. For Tami Neilson, that light takes the shape of a neon cowgirl glowing above Broadway in downtown Nashville — a familiar figure to generations of country dreamers, but for Tami, she’s something more. She’s a symbol. A signpost. A patron saint of heartbreak and hope. And now, the namesake and spiritual guide of Neilson’s most personal, ambitious, and electrifying album to date: Neon Cowgirl.

Released amid a whirlwind year that saw Tami share the stage with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan on the 2025 Outlaw Music Festival tour, play Willie’s 4th of July Picnic, and perform on the hallowed boards of The Grand Ole Opry, Neon Cowgirl is more than a record — it’s a testament to grit, survival, and a lifelong devotion to the music city that raised her, broke her, and ultimately brought her home.

With collaborators like JD McPherson, Neil Finn, Grace Bowers, and Ashley McBryde — who co-wrote and guests on the blazing Americana single “Borrow My Boots” alongside Shelly Fairchild — the album is a star-studded triumph rooted in real blood, sweat, and asphalt. As Rolling Stone once dubbed her, the “fire-breathing R&B belter” leans all the way in, delivering cinematic torch songs that draw on the dusty spirit of Patsy Cline, the raw muscle of Presley, and the sweeping drama of Roy Orbison. But at its core, Neon Cowgirl is all Tami Neilson.

The album wasn’t born in a studio — it was earned on the road. In a 36-foot RV zig-zagging across North America, Neilson turned a five-month family pilgrimage into a songwriting mission. Alongside her husband and two kids — both born and raised in New Zealand — she retraced her family’s musical roots and sowed the seeds of this album in places as wide-ranging as the ghost-lit halls of Graceland and the neon graveyards of Las Vegas. Her journey passed through technicolor deserts and buffalo-laden plains, across broken highways and soul-healing skylines — each mile writing itself into the fabric of the record.

But that road nearly didn’t happen. Just two months before the trip, Tami landed in the ICU battling sepsis, spending weeks fighting for her life. That brush with death didn’t derail the journey — it transformed it. What was meant to be a career sprint became something softer and far more profound: a recovery, a reckoning, a deep, deliberate inhale of life’s fleeting beauty. That lived experience echoes through every note of Neon Cowgirl. There’s joy and ache, swagger and sorrow — the ache of longing matched only by the fire of someone who refuses to give up.

It’s not just the music that tells the story. It’s the history — hers, ours. Tami grew up chasing the glow of Nashville. At 16, she was starry-eyed in the pews of the Ryman. At 18, she was flipping through Loretta Lynn CDs after performing on the General Jackson showboat with her family band, The Neilsons. At 30, she returned on her honeymoon. A decade later, she showcased for 12 people at 3rd and Lindsley. Five years after that, she finally took the Ryman stage. Full circle, but still reaching.

Neon Cowgirl is a love letter to a dream that never quite says goodbye — and the woman who dared to chase it, no matter the cost. It pulses with country’s past, but looks squarely to the future, carried by one of the fiercest voices in modern Americana. It’s honky-tonk heartbreak and rhinestone soul, rodeo glam and roadside grace.

“She watched me grow up,” Neilson says of the neon cowgirl that looms over Broadway. Now, the whole world is watching her shine back.