PUEBLO, Colo. – Singer Annie Bosko has a secret.

When she sang the national anthem at the PBR Buck Off at the Garden in Madison Square Garden in January, she had laryngitis.

“I was terrified. Oh my god. Terrified,” Bosko recalls now. “Of course, I didn’t tell anyone. I never tell anyone how sick I actually am. It ain’t my first rodeo.

“I got a steroid injection in my arm, and well, we’re (still) working together, and I think I nailed it,” she said with a laugh.

Indeed, Bosko impressed so much that she’s now going to be a part of the PBR World Finals Concert Series on May 12-21 in Fort Worth, Texas. She will perform on Thursday, May 18, at 1:30 p.m. CT at the Tractor Supply Co. Stage at the Fort Worth Stockyards, and on Friday, May 19, at 6 p.m. at Simmons Bank Plaza at Dickies Arena.

Laryngitis-free, hopefully.

“I told them, I’m like, ‘Put me to work. I want to play as much as you’ll let me,’” Bosko said. “I can’t wait for everybody to hear my rock and country side. It’s the biggest event for the PBR, so I’ll be there for about a week, and I’m just excited to perform at all the events and to watch the event. It’s like the Grammys of the PBR.”

Bosko’s appreciation for Western sports and the Western lifestyle goes back almost as far as her passion for music.

Her mom says she sang in her crib as a baby before she even knew what singing was.

“The first movie I remember watching was The Wizard of Oz, and I remember Over the Rainbow, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to be Dorothy,’” Bosko said. “It just captivated me, and when I heard Over the Rainbow, I was like, ‘That’s it.’”

Bosko’s father loved old-school, classic country music and exposed her to Patsy Cline at a young age. He then took her to a Shania Twain concert when she was 11 or 12, where she decided to pursue music as a career.

“I started singing in church, and singing everywhere – football games, funerals, weddings, wherever,” Bosko said. “My grandparents were really big supporters and really supportive of me, and they were like, ‘Okay, we’re going to pay for you to go to singing lessons because we see that this is something that’s special. This isn’t just a little hobby.’”

Bosko grew up in Thousand Oaks, California, just an hour and a half outside of Los Angeles, but when the time came to move to continue her music career, Nashville called.

Bosko was, after all, a Western girl. Her father is a third-generation agriculture farmer, her uncle was a rodeo cowboy, and her cousins all competed in rodeo events. The family had a ranch with a corn stand, five quarter horses, and an arena.

“We had, growing up, a little corn stand where we sold our produce,” Bosko said. “They’d sell produce on a larger scale, but this was a local place where they could sell produce, and we could see the horses. So it was fun. We would go husk corn and go on trail rides. I never competed, but I just love horses. They’re my favorite animal, and for me, it was just getting on a horse and going on a trail ride and being in nature, and I’d sing to myself. That made me so happy. That was always a happy place for me, and I’m just grateful that I got to grow up around horses and be outdoors. I just think it’s so rare, especially in today’s world, to get to grow up like that. That’s where I would spend my weekends and try to go as much as possible as a kid.”

 Bosko moved to Nashville when she was 20 and began pounding the pavement, singing demos, and showing up to writers’ nights, and ultimately signed a publishing deal and signed with an agent. While working on her original music, she toured with other artists as a working singer and worked as a writer for a publishing company.

“I sort of learned all spectrums of what I had to do to make a living, honestly,” Bosko said. “It was sort of like I had to learn to do a lot of different things, and I’d say about six years ago was when I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to start self-releasing my music, even if it’s independent, even if it’s not on a label. I’m just going to start doing it.’ And that’s sort of when things started to change for me in a much different way, because I think people started to take me more seriously as my own artist.”

While working on music during the COVID-19 pandemic, she collaborated with country greats Vince Gill, Dwight Yoakam and Raul Malo.

“It just felt like people stepped up to support me, which was huge,” Bosko said. “And I think that’s in large part just because I’ve been doing it awhile, and so they had seen me. And through doing that and paying your dues, I think it makes you more appreciative, and I think people naturally want to support you because they see that you’ve been really putting in the work and you’re serious about it, and it’s not just some sort of flash in the pan kind of deal.”

One of her self-released songs caught the ears of Randy Bernard, former CEO of PBR, who is currently managing Garth Brooks. She signed on with his management company and, just six months later, already has a label offer.

Bosko first discovered the PBR about six years ago when she sang the national anthem at an event for the first time. When she signed with Bernard, the first major gig he booked her was singing the national anthem at the PBR in Madison Square Garden.

“I just loved it,” she said. “It was such a fun event. Always blown away by the production, and I just always am fascinated by the riders. I just love it.”

Now, in just a few weeks, she’ll perform at the Grammys of the PBR.

“I think this’ll be so cool because I’m so excited to play my own music and my own show,” she said. “I’m going to be doing the anthem as well, which never gets old. I love singing that song. My great-grandpa was an immigrant, and so my grandfather, who started the farm, he sold my grandma’s car – it was their only car – and bought a tractor – it was the first tractor in the area – to start his farm. He was so patriotic, and he was so proud to be American, and he was so grateful to live in America because he truly lived the American dream. So that was instilled in me at a very young age, and I always love doing the anthem, but this time I get to perform my own original music, my own country music, at the event, so I’m really inspired and excited to do that.”