Ashley Monroe
Monroe was born on September 10, 1986 in Knoxville, Tennessee. At age 11, she won a talent contest singing "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and found steady work at a theater there. While growing up, her parents played songs by the Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd, so her country rock roots started early on. Monroe's father died from cancer in 2000, when she was just 13. While still grieving over their loss, Monroe and her mother continued on with their lives and moved to Nashville so she could pursue her career in music. She has released two solo singles on the U.S.Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The singles "Satisfied" and "I Don't Want To" reached No. 43 and No. 37, respectively. Both singles were intended to be released on Monroe's debut album,Satisfied, in 2007, but the album went unreleased. Soon after, Monroe left Columbia Records' roster in late 2007. Satisfied was finally released on May 19, 2009. In June 2011, Monroe, Miranda Lambert and Angeleena Presley formed a band called Pistol Annies. On the night of Friday, September 14, 2012, Monroe announced on twitter that she had accepted the proposal of then-boyfriend (now fiancé) John Danks, starting pitcher for the Chicago White Sox. The proposal came after the Pistol Annies finished their first show of their headlining tour (no longer tagging along with Lambert's summer tour) and the week of her birthday. Tweeting "I SAID YES! BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!"