From Speedy Creek to Music City: Eliza Doyle's surprising musical journey

Unlike most road trips, Eliza Doyle reflects on her car breaking down as "the best thing that ever happened."

It all started last summer at the Northern Lights Bluegrass Festival in Saskatchewan when she met a fiddler from Colorado.

"She was like, 'Oh my gosh, you're great. You should come move to Colorado. Let's start a band.'" Doyle said. "I was like, 'I can't. I have a teaching job in Swift Current. I have a house. I can't do that.'"

I just wanted to, like, hunker down and study music. And I accidentally started playing music and people liked it.- Eliza Doyle

Then the wheels started turning inside Doyle's mind. She decided to take a year off from work to travel and immerse herself in music.

Doyle initially planned to move to Colorado, but the idea of moving from one cold winter to another changed her mind. She then decided her new home would be in North Carolina. But it didn't work that way.

"I stopped over in Nashville on the 17th of September for the AmericanaFest," she said. "I saw Kacy and Clayton and the Dead South and a whole bunch of other great bands."

But before she could leave Music City, her car broke down. 

"I never thought I would have ended up in Nashville," she said. "I didn't want to be performing. I just wanted to, like, hunker down and study music. And I accidentally started playing music and people liked it."

Before she knew it, Doyle had to print business cards and found herself performing regularly at bars.

"Nashville is such a great, amazing, amazing town," she said. "It feels like a very small town. It's not really big and everybody just really wants to help you out. And everybody is a musician. We just met amazing people."

Doyle continues to meet more artists and her musical sabbatical is off to a blazing start.

"You can hear different music on the radio or you buy a CD," she said. "But to see the players in live action, it made me realize that there's more opportunity to study and to be inspired."