Hudson Westbrook started 2024 like many other college students: going to class, participating in student government and writing for the campus magazine. Mere months later, the Lubbock native took the Austin City Limits Music Festival stage and announced he’d dropped out of Texas Tech University that week — news to his mother in the audience. Today, the raised-right Texan and newly-minted singer-songwriter finds himself on a 50-show trek supporting Midland, among others, and hoping he’ll meet George Strait along the way.
Catapulted to the ACL stage by his viral April debut, “Take it Slow,” he performed a handful of songs alongside his five-piece, fiddler-adorned band. Singing about whiskey with a confident rasp that made it believable from a 20-year-old, he performed a trio of songs from his first EP, released Nov. 15. No sparkle, just a sunburst electric-acoustic and trucker hat.
Bearing the soul of an Indie rocker unphased by weep-worthy emotion, yet the gentle charm of Garth or Parker, Westbrook gives a clean-shaven face to red dirt country. Fueled by over 73 million total streams from his latest release, he stares down a whirlwind touring schedule, with little downtime to think about how he’s left Hub City, and gone from Red Raider to rocker.
“Everyone was like, ‘Where did this kid go?’ I called my advisor, and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m pursuing music,’” Westbrook said while stopped on the road to his next gig in College Station. “You go from seeing your friends every day and seeing your dog, going to classes and meetings and having a schedule. Now, I do have a schedule, but it involves me going to 20 different states and with five dudes.”
In Westbrook’s short life, his time with music proves even shorter. He learned to play on a borrowed guitar throughout the pandemic, and he didn’t benefit from any musical background, aside from a long love of Chris Stapleton. He once dreamed of playing college football or baseball, and studied energy commerce until two months ago.
“Once I learned guitar, that’s when it became a dream,” Westbrook said. “Then, I could play and learn how to sing, and I recorded songs for fun, but I never wanted to go out and pursue it. I was also in a small town, and I feel like once you leave a small town, then you actually chase the dream that you wanted to chase, because not everyone has an opinion on what you’re doing.”
In that small town, however, the well-mannered Westbrook maintains a loyal fan base, led by his mom Heidi, who said the reality of his rapid rise just started settling in.
“I had a surreal OMG moment, because I hopped in the car with my friend, we’re talking and going to grab a Starbucks on our way back to work, and his song comes on,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is Hudson. It’s not on my Spotify. My friend was like, ‘Heidi, he’s on now. It’s on.’”
Hudson’s ride to recording his self-titled EP began unexpectedly in April, when his first song blew up.
“It’s been a wild ride, and probably the fastest I’ve ever seen a young artist explode, since the height of Luke Combs,” said Zebb Luster, general manager of Westbrook’s label, River House Artists. Luster began his own career working alongside Combs’ early collaborators.
Westbrook’s fans continue making his EP, particularly the track “Home Again,” a streaming success. Exploring themes of divorce inspired by his own household, his smooth, bluesy twang paired with a rural huskiness masks his youth. His phrases become a cliché storyline you can already picture a multi-generational audience swaying their flashlights to in an arena.
“But now it’s just four empty walls/ Where I lay my head and get no rest at all/ I guess you or I should have left when you did/ The house you made a home is/ Now just a house again,” Westbrook sings in “House Again.”
Naturally, his wail exudes wear and tear, demonstrating greater vocal control on this release compared to his spring debut. Other standouts include “5 to 9,” a catchy honky-tonk jam with odes to the working man still hungry for love, and “Two Way Drive,” a tribute to time spent in the car with his mom.
“I know he hasn’t experienced some of it, and some he has,” his mom said. “It’s just amazing what he can pull in that captures the audience in a part of their life as well.
Whereas his vocal maturity bodes well for airplay, his youthful personality drives much of his following. With more than nine million likes on TikTok, Westbrook said he and his team manage every short video as much as his next single.
“Preparation is so important,” Westbrook said. “On this date, we’re gonna introduce this song, and we’re gonna tease it until the next week. ‘House Again’ went viral. People are posting their girlfriend to it, and it’s a divorce song. But if that’s what people are relating to, then push for a love song. I’ve learned that we live in a microwave society nowadays, and if you don’t hear what you want, then it’s probably not going to spark any interest. How can I express my personality, but also create a personality around each song?”
Racking up more fans by the TikTok, Westbrook finds himself washing his clothes and sleeping in a different place every night. Gearing up to support Ian Munsick and release an album by next September, Westbrook’s mom knows he won’t be off the road anytime soon, but like any parent, hopes he’ll find a moment to take it all in.
“He’s in the beginning stages, but it’s important that he can take time to take a break,” she said. “He leaves Thanksgiving evening to go do the next gig. I know that’s his breathing time, just to relax and consume what he just did.”
Hudson Westbrook: showing a sometimes rigid country scene that often superficially follows for him equals seats filled — enough to continue inspiring his rootsy red reverie.
“(People) don’t understand the capacity of it until they come out on the road,” Westbrook said. “You see numbers on social media, but until they come out and see people sing, they’re like, ‘Holy crap. This is actually something that’s happening’. Every time you step up on stage, or get to write a song and create something new, I don’t think that’s work. It’s definitely a dream now, and it’s something that I don’t ever want to stop doing.”
