Keystone Artist Connect Illustrates The Key to Success is Connection

“We’re in the hardest business in the world. We make zero dollars. We sleep at gas stations. It’s a terrible formula. So how do we make that formula better?”
–-Danielle Mashuda, founder of Keystone Artist Connect.

There’s no lack of complaining or awareness that independent country and roots musicians don’t always receive the proper resources their talent deserves, especially when it comes to women. The toughest question to answer is what can be done about it?

One group of women operating under the name Keystone Artist Connect have decided that instead of sitting back and watching their favorite artists continue go under-supported, they’re rolling up their sleeves and doing something about it.

In just a few short years, Keystone Artist Connect has gone from a collective of passionate music fans to getting the attention of many in the music industry through showcases they’ve hosted at big, national music gatherings such as Austin’s South By Southwest (SXSW), and Nashville’s AmericanaFest.

Keystone is known for throwing some of the best parties in music, and ones where fans connect with artists, and artists connect with important people in the industry in ways that result in meaningful support for their careers.

“What inspired us actually is management taking advantage of artists,” says Keystone Artist Connect founder Danielle Mashuda. “We have so many friends that are artists that pay $3,000 a month for professionals that don’t get shows booked. It’s $500 for a bio. It’s $2,000 for a website developer. Everything costs money, and that’s not even talking about an album. That’s $30,000. They don’t have any money. So we were just sick of people getting taken advantage of, or not receiving the opportunities they deserve.”

Artists and their fans often feel that if a performer just received more exposure and support, their music would find the sustainable success it deserves. But it often becomes a “cart before the horse” scenario. Danielle Mashuda was unique in how she decided to forgo the financial concerns to start, and instead just began helping performers she believed in pro bono.

“We’re working with people that we love, and artists that we love, and music that we love with the idea that one day [the money] will come because we’re going to build it,” Mashuda says. “But it is really hard getting people to take you seriously at first. I started by just trying to build my contacts and build my relationships.”

The way Mashuda did this was by attending various events simply as a fan or a guest of bands, and then becoming the tour manager for fast-rising Alabama Southern Rock artist Taylor Hunnicutt. Mashuda first saw Taylor Hunnicutt perform at SXSW in 2022 after being tipped off by The Vandoliers, and immediately fell in love with her, going to all six of the shows she played at the event.

Hunnicutt had the talent, but needed more support to rise to the next level. Mashuda was in a unique position to help since she inherited a host of rental properties in her hometown of Pittsburgh and can travel on a regular basis. So she saddled up with Hunnicutt as a tour manager, and started helping out however she could. At the same time, Mashuda was building a door into the walled garden of music.

“I’m out going to shows. I’m at every festival. The musicians that I know, the tour managers that I know, that’s why I’m doing this,” Mashuda explains. “As someone who is trying to book bands and can’t get an email back ever, I’m now at every single venue, meeting the promoters, shaking hands, and now I have all of their numbers on my phone. So I grew it organically, grassroots style.”

Danielle Mashuda had been going to live music events her entire life. But it was Pittsburgh-based steel guitar player Read Connolly (Charles Wesley Godwin, Zach Bryan) who convinced Mashuda at AmericanaFest 2021 that she needed to work in the industry, and transform her deep passion for music into a career that could help performers.

Before starting Keystone Artist Connect, Danielle Mashuda and co-founder Maddy Lafferty worked for a production company in Pittsburgh. The original vision was to help local Pittsburgh artists by promoting local shows, as well as up-and-coming performers touring through Pittsburgh to where they can play for built-in crowds. Maddy Lafferty now operates Keystone in Pittsburgh, which acts like the financial pillar of the business, and has found great success booking and promoting local events.

“The local Pittsburgh scene is really good,” Mashuda explains. “We have a good group of musicians, and everyone teams together, incredible music venues and we have relationships with all of them. We started at the local level, and we’re branching out now.”

In 2024, the branches connected to Texas and artist manager Kelby Dru who has worked with Texas music artist Jade Marie Patek for many years, and who recently helped launch surging Texas music band The Droptines. Danielle Mashuda also works as the full-time manager for Texas country queen Summer Dean, New England-based songwriter Tyler-James Kelly, Husband and wife duo The Waymores, and country/rockabilly legend Rosie Flores among others.

“I want to keep it women in the organization, but we’re not always going to have an all female roster obviously. Whether it’s women as artists or women as management, that is our goal. We want to go out there and change the way things are done. We don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it. I don’t know how we grow it and make it bigger. But we are making moves, and it’s all just from being nice and making connections.”

The “connect” part of the Keystone Artist Connect is crucial to their collective success. Along with Danielle Mashuda, Maddy Lafferty, and Kelby Dru, other women are close to the Keystone Artist Connect orbit such as videographer Sarah Bizanovich, who is able to provide social media content that is so crucial to up-and-comers to make connections with new fans.

“That’s Danielle’s super power, building relationships and making contacts, and just being a genuine person in this business,” Sarah Bizanovich says. “That’s why people connect with Danielle and people connect with Keystone. The connect piece is huge.”

That is also why Keystone’s events at AmericanaFest and SXSW have been so valued to the participants. They’ve become incubators for talent, and invaluable networking opportunities for everyone who attends. At AmericanaFest, Kira Annalise Neal of The Waymores who recently needed brain surgery told Danielle Mashuda, “What you have done for me in the past three days with the connections you’ve made has been more than what a label did for me for 10 years.”

“That’s why I do what I do,” says Mashuda. When she was able to get a song from Tyler-James Kelly on SiriusXM’s Outlaw channel, he said, “You just made all of my dreams come true since I was a 10-year-old.”

Getting songs on playlists, getting gigs for performers, or simply making meaningful connections is sometimes the most important ground floor support artists can receive, especially at the beginning of their career.

“We’ve got great artists, and more that want to work with us. I’m trying to solve the problem of booking agents not talking to artists that don’t have 30,000 Instagram followers so you can’t get on tours with bigger artists because their managers are pairing their smaller artists with their bigger artists. It’s like a vicious cycle,” says Mashuda. “I want to work with the smaller artists that need to be built up because my goal is getting these artists what they need, getting them the shows and the tools so they can build a following and be great and bigger at what they do.”

That vicious cycle is especially true for women according to Keystone Artist Connect’s Kelby Dru, especially women in the Texas music market.

“There is a slight bias across all avenues of the industry, and everything is connected,” Dru says. “So if you don’t have the streams, you don’t get the show. If you don’t get the show, you don’t get the exposure. And if you don’t get exposure, you don’t get the streams. It’s all connected in one shape or form. So if you have just a little bit of bias in each of those avenues, it adds up to be a lot. Most people are not out there saying, ‘Oh, this is a female, I’m not going to listen to that.’ Yes, that does happen. But that’s not the majority of it. It’s that they aren’t given a platform, and so people don’t even know it exists. It all just adds up to be this cycle that you can’t break.”

But Keystone Artist Connect is helping artists to break through by building connections. In 2024, they booked out the legendary Arlyn Studio in Austin for a SXSW event. In 2025, Keystone Artist Connect will be returning to Arlyn for two days showcasing artists. At AmericanaFest in September in Nashville, Keystone threw multiple events, including an event at the Gibson Guitars Garage that many said was one of the marquee events of the festival. Taylor Hunnicutt, Kimmi Bitter, India Ramey, Caitlin Cannon, Jade Marie Patek, The Hawthorns, and others performed in tribute to Western guitarist Mary Ford.

“We had out launch party in March 1st of 2022,” Danielle Mashuda says. “Our goal was in three years to have a showcase at SXSW and Americanafest, and we’ve had them every year since two weeks after we opened the business, and they’ve only grown.”

A big key to Keystone Artist Connect has been building relationships between artists and industry members, but also with other like-minded grassroots organizations looking to help artists first as opposed to worrying entirely about the bottom line. This includes Mule Kick Productions and Mule Kick Records who released albums from Alice Wallace and India Ramey in 2024, and Torrez Music Group, home to Gabe Lee, Braxton Keith, Jason Eady, and King Margo among others.

The other key component for Keystone Artist Connect is brand sponsors like Gibson who often are willing to help, especially when they feel their efforts are going toward a worthy cause like the one Keystone is championing.

Danielle Mashuda is open and honest about how Keystone Artist Connect can’t work with every artist that wants them. The time and resources are just not there, and they must truly believe in the performer so they can commit to them 100%.

But what Keystone Artist Connect is also presenting is a model of how other grassroots-based organizations can build themselves into companies that could help up-and-coming artists by not just being a manager, or a booking agent, or a label, or a social media manager, but a little bit of all of these things if necessary to get artists over the “vicious cycle” hump that sees so many performers perceptually stuck at the bottom.

Keystone also presents a woman owned-and-operated organization that is succeeding in an otherwise adversarial landscape.

“I try to go into every situation really confident, and just take the wins when they come,” says Mashuda, who admits it helps being a strong personality. “It is a boys club, and it’s hard. But I think you have to shoot your shot. It’s incredible to have those moments where you finally succeed. The next question is where to take it from here?”

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This article is part of a series of discussions, posts, and initiatives attempting to resolve the gender gap between men and women in country music.