When you grow up in a rural part of New England, your dreams of being anything in the media or the arts become practical, shaped by geography as much as or more than talent.

For someone who aspires to share their music with the masses, the thought of Hollywood or Nashville seems like a distant pinpoint on a map rather than a destination for the dream.

The sobering fact is that not many musicians from the northeastern reaches of the United States have broken through to national success. For every James Taylor or Ray LaMontagne, the musical landscape is littered by artists who dreamed big but didn’t quite make it past the county line.

Ben Fuller grew up on his family’s dairy farm in southern Vermont. He began singing on the farm when he was young, but didn’t play his first show until 2017, when he was 30 years old, at a small local bar. But that was enough to fuel his passion for more.

Soon thereafter, he packed up everything he had and headed to Nashville, determined to make his mark on the music industry. He quickly discovered that the only way he would make it was to be true to himself.

“I've come to find out how important it is to be honest and tell your story,” says Fuller, who was named one of the Christian/Gospel Artists to Watch in 2023 by Pandora. “The one beautiful thing about your story is that nobody can argue with it. It happened to you, and that's yours. It's your story. It's your truth. And I love that. So very much so that everywhere I've been, I've just been telling my story and how Jesus has saved my life.”

Playing every live venue that would give him stage time, Fuller eventually caught the ear of Provident Entertainment, which signed him to a recording contract in 2022.

The rest, as they say, is history. In the last three years, my guest has racked up two Dove Awards, a KLOVE Award, 53 million streams of his single “If I Got Jesus,” and performances at the Grand Ole Opry and the CMA Festival.

He has just released his second album, Walk Through Fire, which features a collaboration with multi-platinum-selling artist Carrie Underwood on a song called “If It Was Up to Me.”

“When Carrie said she'd sing with me on that song, of course, I just about blacked out,” Fuller explains. “I don't really even know what happened. Carrie is one of the most wonderful, sweet, calm, patient, most awesome people I've ever met. And so I'm sitting there (in the recording studio) and thinking, ‘Lord, what have you done in my life?’

Fuller joins us to chat about growing up on a rural dairy farm in rural Vermont, what inspired him to take the big leap to start his music career in Nashville, and a fateful dinner with hometown friends that changed his life forever.

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