Throughout the past few years, Reflections has supported a talented singer/songwriter, Tyler Barham.

Hailing from Montana, Barham is an artist who’s played shows across the country both headlining and as support for other acts. Barham recently signed with the Country Music Association (CMA) as a member and his YouTube channel has about 9 million views. I’m also proud to call this talented artist a friend.

It was on YouTube that Barham got his name out there and, coincidentally, it was on YouTube where I first acquainted myself with his talents. A mutual friend, Katie Basden – who’s a talented artist in her own respect – posted one of Barham’s YouTube videos on her Facebook page. As you know, I’m always up to check out new artists, so I did just that. The song on the video was Barham’s original tune “17 & Young” and I was immediately hooked. At the time, I’d started getting out of country music. I didn’t particularly like what artists in the genre were producing. However, “17 & Young” was a breath of fresh air and it gave me hope for a genre that was losing its way.

Soon after watching the video, I said to myself: “I’ve got to feature this guy on my blog.” In 2013, I wrote a “New Music Monday” feature on Barham which was well-received and later found out that Barham would be traveling to North Carolina for a show in Mayodan – a town I’m pretty familiar with since I have some family there. I knew I had to see this show, so I made the two-hour trek to Mayodan. Barham saw the feature I’d written but I didn’t expect him to come over to my table at the venue, formally introduce himself to me and thank me in person for writing it. As a writer, it’s cool for someone to comment on a post or email you with their appreciation for what you write. But, when someone takes the time to thank you in person? That truly means a lot! Several shows and some more blog posts later, Barham and I have become good friends.

Over the past few years, Barham has grown as an artist and he’s been given some great opportunities because of it. One such opportunity is a competition called Nash Next. The competition is an opportunity for rising artists to not only gain notoriety but the winner will also receive a record deal. We’re talking big time stuff, here, people. Life changing stuff.

The first of several stages in the competition began on Monday where fans vote for their favorite artists. The top 100 artists determined by voters will continue on in the competition and will be tasked to complete a series of challenges, the field narrowing after each challenge. The artist who performs the best with the challenges and has the most fan support wins. Barham is in the competition and needs help to stay in it. That’s where you come in! Supporting Barham is very simple, just watch the video below for more information on how to sign up for a fan profile on the Nash Next site. After that, you can check out all of Barham’s music (and “like” it) as well as vote for him just with a click of the mouse. You can vote once per day and all of this will help with positioning on the leaderboard.