Tag: old country

Lily Meola is Lucky to Be Living This Life

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For the cover of her new album, Lily Meola wanted to lie across a lily pad, but not just any lily pad. Something like the gigantic Victoria amazonica, which has enough structure beneath it to support the weight of a person. After searching the internet and calling botanical gardens around the world, she happened upon a place in Tennessee that allowed her to achieve her dream.

It’s an apt metaphor for Meola’s debut album, Lucky to Be. The Hawaii native has found support in her adopted hometown of Nashville through the likes of Jamey Johnson, who appears on the new album, and through performances at CMA Music Festival and the Grand Ole Opry. Meola draws from all eras of country music – one of the songs, “Daisies,” is inspired by ERNEST’s “Flower Shop,” while “Tumbleweeds and Chewing Gum” is a duet with Willie Nelson. Lukas Nelson, a longtime family friend, also lends his voice to the charming “Mar Vista.”

Meola earned a national breakthrough on America’s Got Talent in 2022 with her original song, “Daydream,” which was written as a way to show support to her struggling friends as well as to grieve her late mother. While writing the new songs for Lucky to Be, the Maui native learned that you have a one-in-400-trillion chance of being born with your exact genetic makeup.

“That sounds like such a wild statistic, right? You’re like, ‘Where did they come up with that?’ But it really stopped me in my tracks and made me think about life differently, and approach the record so differently,” she says.

BGS caught up with Lily by phone a few days before the release of Lucky to Be.

Let’s start with the song “Lucky to Be.” There’s that opening line, where you’re recalling a moment of seeing the shooting star through an airplane window, which I think was a real-life moment for you. So, what were you thinking about when you wrote that song?

Lily Meola: Honestly, that song has so many different little meanings and moments in it. Yeah, that first line – actually, each line – in the song is a real life-moment. I was actually on my way to Nashville to write. At the time I didn’t live here, but I spent a lot of time here over the last 13 years and it felt like a second home to me. But I had been away for a while and I didn’t have a record out.

I was like, “Okay, am I doing the right thing?” There’s always like a little bit of… I wouldn’t say doubt, but I’m always looking for signs that I’m on the right path. On the flight, I looked out the window. It wasn’t even like I was staring out the window. I just looked for a second, and this shooting star went by. And I knew. I was like, “Okay, this is a good sign. I’m still on the right path.”

That’s got to feel good to know you had a little bit of validation that high up in the air.

Yeah, exactly. I didn’t know if that was even possible. It’s just a wild experience to see it, so that’s the first part of the verse, and the next part of the verse actually ties into the first line as well. I lost my mom in 2020 to cancer and I try to look for the signs and everything to keep communication with her alive, if that makes sense. And so it was like a sign from her. … The next line is [about] this palm tree buried with some of her ashes at a special beach on Maui, and even though she’s gone, how lucky was I to be able to have such an incredible mom for so many years?

The whole song is just kind of looking at the bright side of the wildness of life and the next line is, “how lucky are we to feel chaos and peace and everything in between.” … Whatever it is we’re going through in life, whether it be the good, the bad, the ugly, it’s all just part of this experience and journey of being a human. Regardless of it all, we’re all just lucky to be here in the first place, and I think that we lose sight of that within our everyday hustle and bustle of life. And so it was a good reminder for me. I struggle with depression, and I needed that reminder in that moment, that this is all just a part of the journey.

Where do you get your drive to keep forging ahead? Where does that motivation come from?

That’s a good question. It’s literally just a part of me, I guess. I’ve been playing shows since I was 10 years old and I haven’t really looked back. I just had one foot in front of the other and kept going. I have a lot of things I’m interested in in life, but it’s what feeds my soul, and I’m addicted to it, I guess, in a healthy way! [Laughs] I don’t think I could really do anything else, because of how special it feels, and how natural it feels to me.

What were your gigs like when you were 10 years old?

I got my first gig at 10 and it was before a movie at a film festival. And then I just started getting little gigs here and there. I had a weekly cafe gig in my teens. I had a bar gig on Friday nights. I’m from Maui, which is a small island, and so I just kind of popped around all the different places that you could perform and did little shows. Then I did conventions, like Toyota would come and they’d bring their whole company. Anyway, it just evolved and I just kept doing it. Different events, private events, parties. I’d walk around with my little sound system everywhere. [Laughs]

Not a typical teenage life in Hawaii, playing corporate gigs. That’s a cool story.

Yeah, it is, and I loved every minute of it, and I think that’s what kept me going. I’m truly obsessed with what I do. I love every aspect. I love to write, I love to record. I love to perform. I think maybe the only part I’m not that interested in is the business side. [Laughs] So, you find the right partners for that, but I just love what I do and I can’t imagine a life where I’m not doing it.

How did you connect with Willie Nelson?

It’s a small island, and he lives there, and our families are friends. So they came to my gig, and he sat in and sang “Crazy” with me. After the gig, he handed me a napkin and it had a few songs written on it and he was like, “If you’d like to record any of these, let me know.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, of course.” We ended up recording some stuff, but what we had done that day was corrupted. There was some situation that happened with the sound board that made the files unlistenable and unusable. So we’re not going to be like, “Hey, well, you want to come back and do that again?”

So fast forward a couple years, he was making his duets record, To All the Girls…, and he invited me to come and do a song with him. I flew out to Austin and we recorded “Will You Remember Mine?” It’s a song that he wrote, and one of the songs that was on the napkin, I’m pretty sure. Then he took me out on the road with him to promote that record and it was just incredible. It was the best experience ever, and I’m so grateful to him and his whole family. They’ve all been so lovely to me, and taken me under their wings, and showed me that I could love what I do even more. It’s been a beautiful journey with them. I’m forever grateful.

“Tumbleweeds and Chewing Gum” feels like a really full circle moment on my record, coming back to honoring how grateful I feel for that time. His voice is just so, so sweet on it, and his guitar playing is just one of a kind. And having a perspective on a song like that, from two different people in very different parts of their lives and careers, it makes the song have so much more depth to it, and meaning for me.

He’s the perfect voice for that song, because tumbleweeds and chewing gum are gonna be around forever, and the music of Willie Nelson is gonna be around forever, too.

Yeah, exactly. There’s all these things in life that’ll stick around, but we’re here for just a moment. And we might as well do what we love, because it’s gonna end at one point. The line in it that resonates with me the most is, “You and me will turn to dust and all our shiny things are gonna rust, so love me just because.” It’s so true, and we forget that.

I watched your video for “Never Want This to Change,” and I was thinking, have I ever heard Jamey Johnson sing harmony before? I can’t imagine he does that very much, but he sounded great. What did you like about hearing your voices together?

Oh, Jamey is just… I use this quote for his voice: “It’s as if God has favorites.” There’s something to it where it’s so soulful, but it’s gritty, and also feels like you’re getting a warm hug at the same time. Does that make sense? [Laughs] I love him, and he’s been a friend of mine for many years. I’ve always wanted to do a song with him. We did something years and years ago for a Christmas record he did. This song just felt perfect for his voice, and I’m just so happy that he’s on it.

Some people think you have to suffer for your art. Have you ever bought into that theory, that you have to suffer in order to be a great songwriter?

No, no, I don’t think so, but I do think that without darkness, how can you fully appreciate the light? There’s definitely songwriters out there that haven’t had tragedy, but they’re just poetic and it’s a part of their being. But when I write with someone who shares a similar experience, or has been through something hard in life, the songs are just different. There’s an understanding there, but I will say, when I write with someone who hasn’t, it also brings out a light-hearted side of me, as well.

There’s a line on the album that says, “It’s lucky I’m crazy for you,” and later you’re singing, “you’re lucky enough to find you and I,” and of course the album title is Lucky to Be. So I get the sense that feeling lucky is more than just a line in the song for you, and I wondered what makes you feel so lucky these days.

It’s just an accumulation of everything, all the things I’ve been through. All of those lyrics just naturally ended up in the songs. I just pinch myself daily that I get to live this life and do what I love. Again, that statistic made me really think about life and understand how lucky I really am.

Photo Credit: Jimmy Fisco (lead image); Bailey Roberts (alternate images)

Waylon Wyatt Leads a New Generation of Country Stars

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a raw, gut-wrenching approach to songcraft, Waylon Wyatt is quickly becoming an essential voice in the new generation of Americana artists. Emphasis on “new generation.”

A 19-year-old from the tiny West Arkansas town of Hackett, Wyatt has parlayed a razor-wire vocal and songs written to honor the memory of a lost brother into rising acclaim, first via social media and then on country’s biggest stages. Already a fan of Zach Bryan, Wyatt opened two shows for the superstar at London’s massive BTS festival in Hyde Park in 2025, and since then he’s continued growing.

Gritty anthems to love like “Arkansas Diamond” have been met with massive streaming number and a pair of duets with fellow red-dirt riser Bayker Blankenship set the pace for more singles to come. In June, the young talent was performing as part of CMA Fest when his friend and hero Wyatt Flores invited him to make his Grand Ole Opry debut. And the instinctive songwriter has made huge creative leaps as well.

On his debut album Dustpiles that released on July 17, Wyatt seems to unburden his soul a little more on each craggy, sun-baked, acoustic anthem. But with a long list of big-name collaborators like Ian Fitchuk, Carter Faith, Joe Becker (Sam Barber), Tofer Brown (Tim McGraw, Old Dominion), Anderson East, and Brett Truitt, his signature style is more honed than ever.

Waylon Wyatt spoke with Good Country about where his tunes come from, and where rising fame has him headed.

Tell me a little about home in Arkansas. What’s life like in Hackett?

Waylon Wyatt: Hackett, it’s a map dot for sure. It’s pretty easy to overlook. There’s nothing too crazy. We don’t have any stoplights in my town so I guess you could say it’s pretty go, go, go. But it’s a small town and it’s very homey and I love how peaceful Hackett is. My first time going to Nashville, I was not ready for how just lit up everything would be.

I’m very glad to be where I’m from. Growing up in Arkansas is just a blessing and a half because you have so many people that are so encouraging. I mean, I didn’t grow up with any bullies in my life or anything like that. I had more supporters than I did haters. So I would say that I was pretty well backed up during my whole development of trying to find a career path, especially by my parents. I say they are my biggest fans, but they also are my biggest humblers. My family in general is very good at keeping me grounded and making sure that I don’t get no big head.

You said family’s a big part of your life and I know that’s true, because when I saw you at Basement East [in Nashville], you talked about how you got started after losing your brother. Can you talk a little bit about why that inspired you to start in music?

Yeah, of course. So when I was about eight or nine years old, my brother ended up taking his own life and that just kind of threw me off for the longest time, because I just questioned why. I didn’t really have the knowledge or idea of why that come to be, what was the reason behind it, that kind of stuff. I mean, I was young, so it just didn’t make sense. I’m still kind of figuring those things out. Even now, I’m still questioning as to what directed that to happen. But growing up with it there was kind of a hole in my life, a hole in the family amongst us all, because he was the oldest brother of my family.

Later on, I got into music through learning guitar, because my older brother was a guitarist. He was a musician. He was a good one at that. Wasn’t as much a singer. I don’t think he could carry a lick of a tune whatsoever, but he was a guitarist. When I was younger, I had this fake little electric guitar that if you plucked it, it would make guitar sounds and we would call it our little jam sesh. I would be with him while he was playing and I’d act like I was playing and just riffing off each other. But I like to think that we’re still having our jam sessions now. When I get up on stage and I sing the one song that I wrote directly for him [“Phoning Heaven”], it feels like he’s in that room with me. I think it’s such a beautiful thing that even though it was such a misfortunate and depressing thing that happened … it led me to this music career and to shed light on that for other people that need to hear such things.

I’m sure he’d be very proud of you and how far you’ve come. Is your style kind of close to what he was doing? What kind of music was he into?

Oh man, he was a rocker. I wish I could rock like he did. He was just amazing at riffing.

So were your parents super into outlaw country? Is that why they named you Waylon?

Yeah, my dad was super big into outlaw country. My mom, she’s big into bluegrass and, weirdly enough, heavy metal. That’s her two things. But he was the giver of names. Also, my little brother, his name is Jesse – as in Jessi Colter – and Cole, like Cole Younger [of the James-Younger Gang]. Jesse Cole. My name’s Waylon Wyatt, like Waylon Jennings and Wyatt Earp. It’s just all kinds of things.

That’s cool. Also though, your style is very raw in that acoustic folk-country vein that definitely reminds me of artists like Zach Bryan. Did he make an impact on you?

Oh yeah. I mean the reason I wrote my song called “Arkansas Diamond” was due to a song by Zach Bryan called “Oklahoma Smoke Show.” Oklahoma and Arkansas being so close together, I was like, “Arkansas needs a song about a girl.” And that’s why I started writing that song. It was definitely [the] fuel behind my lyricism, the way he writes his music and the way he depicts a picture through his lyricism as well. His song, “Something in the Orange,” I’m sure that it kind of sparked up my idea of writing “Everything Under the Sun.”

Then I guess it came full circle last summer. You ended up opening for him in London, right? Two nights in Hyde Park and like 70,000 fans each time. What’s going on in your mind in that moment?

I was just kind of bewildered by the fact that I’m all the way in Europe. I mean, I loved that I was playing this thing, but I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that I was in Europe and I was like, “This is so crazy.”

Yeah. If you thought Nashville was overwhelming, then I’d say London was probably that times a hundred, right?

Definitely. Yeah, it was absolutely insane. The people there were so incredible just to hear talk. I get told I have an accent and I don’t think I do, but those people definitely have an accent. … It was a fun time and I can’t wait to be back. We’re going to be hitting that market later this year too. Not Hyde Park, though.

Tell me a little bit about Dustpiles. This is the album debut. What do you love the most about this thing?

So the reason behind this is just the nostalgic feeling of finding love and losing said love and then rediscovering love. … The reason I love it so much though is just because it’s my biggest work to date and I’m so proud of it because it was putting myself out there, working with other songwriters and other producers that I hadn’t yet gotten to know. There was some that were just not the best hang sessions, and there was some that I’d be like, “All right, I’ll be with you till the day I die,” kind of thing.

It was just the idea of getting out of my comfort zone. But the main theme behind Dustpiles specifically is I was writing this song for my girlfriend saying whatever we go through in life, I want to make sure we become so secure with each other that in the end, we can just be two piles of dust. It’s kind of an eerie sound to it, but it’s basically meaning just finding that one that you love so much you see growing old with each other.

That’s an interesting way of looking at something beautiful, and then it’s also got a bit of a darker side.

Definitely. I don’t know why. I could be the happiest man on earth and I’ll still find a way to write a gut-wrenching lyric.

You’re wrapping up a headline tour pretty soon. That’s a big step to come early in your career. So how’s it going?

So we’re wrapping up the Everywhere Under the Sun Tour pretty soon, but we’ll be starting the debut album tour – my first world tour, Dustpiles World Tour – and I’m super stoked about that. We’re going to be hitting Europe and Australia on this leg. Touring’s been insane. It’s just been crazy. Before even doing all of this, the furthest I’ve been out of home-state was just to the state over, Oklahoma. That’s the furthest I had been. And now I can say I’ve been to Australia, I’ve been to Europe, I’ve been to Scandinavia. That’s probably in Europe, too. I don’t know. But it’s just insane the places I get to go now doing these shows and the people that come to my show and for some reason know the lyrics. I still can’t believe it. I have to preach myself every day I wake up just to see if it’s the reality I’m living right now.

Especially headline shows. I get to act myself and show my true self to the people. I love that so much. And doing these festivals too, one of my favorite things is doing festivals just because I have such an early slot in the day that I get my show over and then I’m just seeing a bunch of other concerts. I’m like, this is awesome. Not only am I seeing a bunch of concerts, but I’m seeing them backstage. So I’m closer to the artist than anybody else.

Speaking of festivals, CMA Fest was a big moment, right? You ended up getting invited to make your Grand Ole Opry debut from your buddy, Wyatt Flores. The look on your face was just utter shock, kind of bewilderment. So what was going on in your head, and how’s it feel to make this Opry debut?

I’ll tell you right now, it was such a big deal. Had it been anybody else, it would’ve been a big deal, too. But being Wyatt, it was the biggest deal it could have been just because Wyatt Flores happens to be the very first live show I ever got to witness. It was at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was such a big deal because I had never been able to go to a live show before. We didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have a lot of time on our hands to be able. My dad does his own construction company. My mom, she’s a mail carrier, so they’re always gone and out doing their own thing. And we kids were just kind of stuck at the house.

His agents had reached out when I had slowly started making waves on the TikTok and that’s how we got the ability to go to a show. And sometime down the line, I met him in a VIP lounge and the first thing after talking to him he gave me his phone number and told me, “If you ever have trouble on the road, just call me and text me.” And later that year, too, I had opened for him for a few shows and then later down the line also we put a song out. So it was just kind of like a gradual circling of each other.

It was also connecting the dots just from him. I think Turnpike [Troubadours] told him [about his Opry debut], so it was one of his idols telling him, and it was my idol, too. Just kind of passing on the torch. I’ll tell you right now, I was doing my best to not tear up. I’m not a very emotional man – except in my lyricism – but there that day I was gutted and I was trying my best not to cry. I took my glasses off because the sun started going down and I told him right in the mic, I was like, “Yep,” then “Thanks for coming!”

Photo Credit: Cole Silberman

The Gentle Genius of Don Williams Sees Daylight Again

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s the age-old dream of the music fan: To unearth old recordings from a favorite artist, laid down in their prime and never heard. And with Epilogue: The Cellar Tapes from the late Don Williams, the dream is 100 percent real.

Capturing the famed Gentle Giant of country music at his creative zenith, 12 new tracks revive one of the format’s most soothing voices, nearly a decade after his passing. Inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry, Williams’ soft-spoken manner underpinned 17 Number Ones between 1972 and 1992, with enduring hits like “Tulsa Time,” “I Believe in You,” and “Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good” showcasing his simple style. It’s been said that country music is three chords and the truth – but Don Williams could do it with two.

After his 2017 passing, Williams’ son Tim went down to the family’s cellar and came back with a treasure trove of tapes, recorded during his dad’s creative peak. Languishing in the dark for 40+ years, they were surprisingly complete. The younger Williams was stunned.

“I was like 12 or so when these things were cut,” he says.

He then turned to the work’s original producer, Garth Fundis, and together they’ve added a remarkable new chapter to a legendary story, which fully lives up to the Williams legacy. Like a window back to a different era, the icon’s tender vocal is in fine form, while a long-gone, patient production style recalls a time in country music when quiet wisdom was a selling point, and men could share feelings directly – no clever turn of phrase necessary.

Williams and Fundis spoke with Good Country about taking the project on, the memories it brought back, and how the Don Williams legacy stacks up in 2026.

I think this story is amazing. This is some really great music that I’m glad people will get to hear. But tell me off the top, why were these songs never released?

Garth Fundis: No particular reason other than when you’re making a record, sometimes you cut more songs than you need. … You might have a song or two songs that sound kind of similar and it might get pushed aside for something else. I think that was the case in most of these. They weren’t things we didn’t like, because there’s strings on some of the [original] stuff and percussion, and those were usually the last things we put on a record.

The intention was there to probably use them, but for one reason or another, something outshined a song we were considering. I remembered all these once I heard them again and remembered working on them, and it’s not like they were bad songs. They just got set aside and then we went on to the next project.

Tim, could you tell us how you became aware of the recordings? Were they stashed somewhere hard to find?

Tim Williams: No, not at all. We have a root cellar at our house that I live in now – the same house that I grew up in – and I knew [Don] had put some stuff down there. They were the big two-inch tapes, like 16-track tapes down there, and I just basically hadn’t thought anything else about them. And I didn’t think anything about them, until recently when my dad’s manager, Robert Pratt, wanted to see what was there. He wondered what was left – what we could transfer digitally, and just see if there was anything usable and viable to release.

Your dad passed away in 2017. What did it feel like to play the tapes that first time? Songs are an intimate thing and an artist has to be vulnerable to capture them.

TW: Well, when Robert was talking to me about doing this, I was pretty lukewarm about it, to be honest. Then we got the actual multi-track rendering and opened them up in Pro Tools, when I heard the vocal tracks, I just thought “That’s just so good.” It’s just right during his primo sweet spot of where his voice was during his career [high]. At that point I was pretty determined that we should carry it to fruition.

So you were a little bit skeptical. Is that because you didn’t want to put anything out that wasn’t up to your dad’s standards?

TW: Yeah, for sure.

GF: That’s where I came from, too. I was hesitant. But Tim said, “Come on out here and hear this stuff.” I remember the songs, I remember recording them with Don. But hearing that voice again, crystal clear and in his prime, it got me hooked. I said, “Yeah, I’m in.”

That’s what’s interesting here. I think when most people hear about a project like this, they might assume these were songs that didn’t quite make the grade. But that’s not the case at all.

GF: I hope you feel that way. That’s the way we feel about it. We think other people will think that, too.

Tim, you were so young when your dad was in his prime. Did this make you see him in a different light?

TW: Well, really it just reinforced what I thought. When you’re listening to the absolute raw audio and there’s nothing between the voice and the microphone and the board, and it’s just as raw as you can get, it proves how technically good a singer he was. It might’ve bolstered that thought.

Garth, you’ve mentioned a couple times now that you remembered cutting these original tracks back in the day. What was it like to start working on them again? Do you remember that first day?

GF: It was just like hearing an old friend again. And like Tim said, just to be able to pull that vocal up and listen to it all by itself without the band and the track and everything around it. … It was really fun to hear that familiar voice and hear just how good it was. To have worked with him and to hear the quality of his voice, the simplicity of how he sang – he didn’t shout, he just kind of framed the song. He always wanted the song to be the focus and not to get above it.

How much did you actually have to change from the original recordings?

TW: The stuff that survived, we used as they were. Garth doesn’t know this. I don’t guess I might’ve shared this with you, Garth. The only thing I had to move at all to get it to lock in, was “Leaving Louisiana [in the Broad Daylight].”

Really?

TW: Yeah, we had to replace so much on that track that I did wind up quantizing that one. The only thing that survived the transfer was Daddy’s vocal and Danny Flowers’ harmonica.

GF: When I first heard what Timmy had done to the track and how the guys had worked to replace a lot of those instruments, I wasn’t involved with that part yet. But I remember thinking, “Well, this isn’t anything like the original track we got. This is so much better.”

TW: But everything else, if the bass part, piano, or whatever survived the transfer and hadn’t deteriorated from sitting in a root cellar for 40 years, we used it.

Garth, you mentioned the simplicity of the way Don sang. It’s so nice to hear that today. Plus, heartfelt country songwriting that’s not trying to be too clever or edgy. Do you think it’s good for the genre to remember that?

GF: I think so. I applaud anyone’s success and good for them. But Don was not a person who needed to shout or sing so hard that he was trying to convince you of a performance, or convince you in any way that would help the song. He came from a folk music background. So he was accustomed to just being easy. Let the song shine through. And, that you cut good enough songs you don’t have to shout. Not only did he have a gentle manner, he had a gentle manner with the microphone and I was able to put the microphone right up next to his mouth. That’s why you get this intimate feeling when you’re hearing him sing – because he’s not shouting, he’s singing.

Which one of these is the most impactful song in your point of view?

TW: Well, there are two or three. I remembered when Daddy originally cut “I’m the One.” I loved it then and I was hoping that was going to be one of the songs that was on these tapes we found. I was thrilled about that. As far as what I like, just consistently enjoy going back and listening to? Because of Daddy’s vocal, it’s “How Can I Miss What I Never Had?” I just think of everything, if you wanted to play for an alien what Don Williams sounded like, I would play that one.

GF: I’d go along with Tim on “I’m the One.” Don’s feel, what he thinks about, how he feels about music, everything about it, is in that song. And fortunately, somehow Tim didn’t really hear the original version of “I’m the One” until I showed up one day with a tape copy of how it was originally recorded. I said, “Hey, have a listen to this.” And we liked both versions so much we just had to keep both of them on the album.

How did he feel about music? What do you mean by that?

GF: I would say he always felt so strongly about trusting the song. If you’ve got to go to the trouble finding something that you can sing, and feels like it belongs in your repertoire, that was the first thing he looked for when he was searching for songs that would feel like him. It had to feel like it’s something he could say and it had to have a good melody to it, and just don’t get above your raisin’. So just take it easy and frame the song.

I did want to ask you about “Leaving Louisiana in the Broad Daylight.” That song became a Number One for The Oak Ridge Boys just after Don recorded it. It was in that same era. So Garth, do you remember why he cut that?

GF: Well, we listened to that song a bunch before we cut it and when we finally started in on it. … We had redone the vocal, I know, because there’s rapid-fire lyrics. It took him a little while to get comfortable with it. It wasn’t necessarily his style, but we put a lot into that, working on that song and then not knowing that The Oak Ridge Boys were coming out with it as a single.

Is that right?

GF: We were working on it about the same time they were finishing it. Don was on the same record company and the same booking agent that worked with The Oak Ridge Boys, and somehow we missed knowing about that. So we kind of stepped aside and just put that one away for safekeeping. Now 30, 40 years later, I’m not thinking about The Oak Ridge Boys record. Congrats to them for the Number One record, but it kind of foiled our plans at one point. Tim and the musicians built a great new track for that song. [Co-writer] Rodney [Crowell] was really tickled when I played it for him. He said, “It was even better than my version.”

Do you think there are any more songs to unearth down in that cellar?

TW: Nope, that’s it.

When this project was announced you said Don would’ve been proud of it. What would he want listeners to take away?

GF: Don always was asked that question, “What do you want people to think about your music?” I often heard him say, “I want people to feel something.” So in the way he communicated a song to the listener’s ear, I think that was first priority for him.

Tim, how about you?

TW: Well, along those same lines, everything started and was sustained throughout the whole process by the song. If it was a good song, regardless of genre, the way it was approached or whatever, a good song delivered authentically was going to be appealing to people. These are just more examples of that, and I think he would expect people to be moved by a song delivered authentically.

Photo Credit: Jim McGuire

Midland Continue to Lead Country’s Vintage Revival

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Ever since they injected vintage swagger and rhinestoned style back into the country mainstream with 2017’s “Drinkin’ Problem,” Midland’s Mark Wystrach (lead vocals), Cameron Duddy (bass/vocals), and Jess Carson (guitar/vocals) have been on a journey.

The GRAMMY-nominated trio have welcomed new stages of life alongside new physical stages, rising from roadside honky-tonks into the legendary clubs they still consider home, and on to the biggest venues in the world. Their climb mirrored their evolving country influences, which began with a love for the treble-and-twang sound of the 1960s and progressed on through the ’70s, ’80s, and beyond, helping lay a revivalist foundation for this current new generation of neo-traditionalist artists. Despite all these changes, they never lost sight of their own brotherhood – or their bar-band roots. Their new album Stages is the proof.

Working primarily with producer Trent Willmon for the first time (Jamie Moore also contributed), Stages finds Midland looking back to their road-dogging Texas beginnings, while bringing their throwback renaissance toward the rich tones of the ’90s era. As a former artist with a late-’90s/early-2000s Texas pedigree, Willmon knows that form well, and it fits Midland like a tailored Manuel suit. Over 10 new tracks, timeless barstool themes unfold under gentle, genuine twang and three-part harmony, taking the masters of modern retro to a new peak.

Good Country spoke with Jess Carson about the current stage of Midland’s story and where the classic-country resurgence may go next. We also touched on the band’s ideal venue, covering bluegrass tunes, and the best course of action when encountering a song written by Dean Dillon.

Midland has always struck me as being about more than just throwback nostalgia. There’s a theme and message behind your work, so what’s the title Stages mean to you?

Jess Carson: I think there’s definitely a part of it that is self-referential for us. I think it’s there in the title, it kind of references our own journey all the way back to The Sonic Ranch, which we ended up releasing later, but was the first time we got together– shoot, 12 years ago. It’s been a long road and journey and we’ve been through a lot of stages. And we’re also very much a road band, so there’s that play on words that’s so popular in country music.

Different physical stages too, right?

Yeah. Which is really where we’ve grown up. From playing in dive bars around the Austin, Hill Country area to … I mean, our last show was at [Arlington, Texas, stadium] Globe Life Field.

That’s amazing. There’s a lot of growth there. You guys have gone through a lot together.

We have, yeah. We’ve done a lot of growing up – but are still pretty immature, probably.

“Young at heart” is a better way to put it, maybe.

Well, part of being a musician is that Peter Pan thing. It’s hard to imagine Keith Richards on the phone trying to figure out some bank charge or something.

I’m interested in the physical stages idea, because your band has stayed really committed to and supportive of smaller stages [like the Palomino Club in LA, which Midland reopened for one night in 2019 to record a 2020 live album], even as you’ve leveled up to the biggest venues in the world. I just wonder why you love the small stages so much?

I think as a musician, you’re always going to love that. It’s the most intimate. It’s where you start out – for us and country music. The kind of dive bar honky-tonk thing is always going to be the most intimate and at least for us, it’s where things feel the most at home. These places around here [in Austin], The Broken Spoke and Gruene Hall, Luckenbach, and places like that. That’s where it feels like the music is at home and it’s the easiest place to catch a vibe. If you play at Global Life Field, for example, you can see the people right in front of you. But you can’t see the people way up in the upper deck.

Where did you want to take the sound this time? Over your career you’ve always blended Texas, Nashville, and California country influences very freely.

I don’t know. All of our albums are really a mix of what we’re listening to at the time, what we’re inspired by. For some reason I was reading this Tom Waits interview recently and he said that he’s in the salvage business. More than being a musician, he’s salvaging all these different bits of inspiration. I can identify with that. Going through the stages of our history and our catalog, I think in the beginning we were maybe inspired by stuff that was even older than where we are now. Maybe our stuff sounds more ’90s now than when we started, when there was a lot more, like, ’60s influence.

It’s just whatever place we’re in. I don’t know how thought out it is. I don’t know how thought out anything we have ever done is. [Laughs]

Maybe that’s the secret. How do you feel about where the country mainstream is right now? I would imagine you’re really enjoying this, because you have a lot of like-minded artists out there with you.

Yeah, I think we played a big part in opening the door for what’s going on right now.

Absolutely.

There was a handful of people. Cody Johnson is one that was really doing that sound in 2014 and is massive now, and Jon Pardi. And then I think we inspired a lot of acts. That’s a big part of our legacy. We were in that class of people who kicked the door down and got steel guitar on the radio again, or at least back on the radio during a time when the mainstream was really thriving. So yeah, I’d say more than ever since we’ve been doing it, it’s like classic country is having this moment. Like, that’s being valued now. You know what I mean?

Totally. I wonder though, do you feel like maybe it’s time for a second wave of this renaissance that you guys helped kick off? Now you can have steel guitar on the radio. Songs with a honky-tonk edge are taken seriously commercially. But could we go further? I mean, do we need some Eddy Arnold-style crooning?

Ooh, that’s a good question. I mean, I don’t know. The older stuff feels more difficult.

You’re saying it could go too far.

It’s like, the stuff that’s ’90s influenced right now, it feels very effortless. Who’s going to say they don’t love Alan Jackson or George Strait, Keith Whitley, Clint Black, Shania Twain?

The ’50s stuff, I love all of that. “Make the World Go Away” and all that kind of stuff, I love it. For whatever reason, it’s harder to make that not feel like cosplay. But, that would be super cool if there was somebody who felt like they came out of this time warp and it felt authentic, because that’s some of my favorite songwriting. Willie Nelson’s songwriting from back then. Tin-Pan-Alley-meets-Nashville/American-songbook type songwriting. It’s the coolest in my opinion. But I think maybe it is harder to do that and have it not feel like a shtick in 2026.

Tell me a little bit more about the album here. Was there a moment when Stages started coming into focus for you creatively, and when was that?

Well, we work on albums through the tour cycle. We don’t really take time off to work on the album, so they definitely have their own way that they take form over time. … This one was the way we’ve done the other albums, where we’ll go to Nashville and spend two days here or four days there. I think the first song we did was “Drunk Enough” and that was like – I don’t even know, over a year ago?

“Drunk Enough” almost felt like a follow-up to “Drinkin’ Problem.” Like, it’s a little farther on in the story. You’re still having fun in the “Drinkin’ Problem” time period, but then things progress and it gets a little sadder.

Well, actually I think “Drunk Enough” is, to me, as close as we probably can get to doing that old American-songbook type sound. With the chord changes and the melody, I think there’s a lot of that old inspiration. If there’s something that could be tied to Eddy Arnold, it would probably be that one from the album.

Can you tell me a little about where “Marlboro Man” is coming from? It seems like there’s a cost that comes to living the way you guys do. Have you felt that?

Definitely. We didn’t write that one, but when we heard it, it was like, “Yeah, we can identify with the aging cowboy.” Or just the guy that’s acknowledging the sacrifices and what it takes to get to this place. All three of us can certainly identify with that character.

It was really fun to go down to Southern Arizona and shoot that music video and also tap into the visuals, the images in that song and the cinematic quality of it, too. But yeah, that’s an old Dean Dillon song that he wrote a while ago. I don’t even know, maybe 10 years ago.

Well, his are all timeless immediately.

Yeah. If you can get an old Dean Dillon song, take it.

Another I want to ask you about is “Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey.” BGS [the parent outlet of Good Country] is a bluegrass outlet at its core, and I remember that song from the SteelDrivers back when [Chris] Stapleton and Mike Henderson were there. What made you want to record that and turn it into something new?

That was one the label sent over and they just felt like it would be great to get an uptempo [track] on [the album]. I think our albums, you want to hit these different cornerstones and especially to be able to integrate into the live set. We’re always going to want to have a “Mr. Lonely,” or we’ve been playing “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” in the set since we re-did that with Brooks & Dunn [for Reboot].

Certainly from the SteelDrivers and Gary Allan, the song had a life before us getting to it. But I think we’re able to put our own spin on it and we’re already playing that one live. It’s just a fun one in the set.

What about “Up In Texas.” You co-wrote this, and it features Clint Black. You mentioned some of the famous Texas dancehalls earlier in the chat here, and this song is kind of a tribute to all the cool things that make Texas what it is, right? Do you still have a lot of love for Texas?

Oh yeah. I’ve been here for, gosh, close to 20 years, and it’s where I’m going to stay. It’s where the band was formed. Mark’s in Colorado now. Cameron and I are still here in Texas. We’ve always been a Texas band. We never did move to Nashville. We probably would’ve gotten a lot farther if we had. But I very much see ourselves as a Texas honky-tonk band still. And there’s been so many songs written about Texas.

Totally.

It’s like that old saying, “How do you tell if somebody’s from Texas? Just wait 10 seconds and they’ll tell you.” People here are so proud of Texas. But you got to do it. The thing is, you can tell if it’s forced. You can tell if you’re pandering.

When we did “Up In Texas,” Josh Osborne came in with that line, “Out of 10, it’s 11/ I bet even in heaven/ They say ‘Up In Texas.’” That was one of those ones that when he said that, it gave me goosebumps. Lines like that don’t come along that often. I love that payoff so much.

Let me get your take on what you think is next. Not just for your band, but what’s next for your kind of music? For country that still feels rooted in the past, but also has a progressive soul. Life has changed for everybody and now you’ve got AI coming online. Where’s your music headed?

We’re hoping to get some AI robots that can just take over touring for us. [Laughs] We’re trying to build something in the garage right now. No, man, who can even say they know where this is all going to land with AI stuff?

I saw an Instagram post yesterday of this guy, it was a Bronc rider and it was a video of his ride, and somebody commented, “AI ain’t taking this guy’s job.” I think in music we hope that there will always be this kind of soul that you can’t replicate. … I don’t know that I have too much wisdom. We don’t have any interest in using [AI] for songwriting or anything like that. I think that’s pretty obvious. … I think we are purists in that way and the stuff that we love was done very organically, and we’re going to just continue to do what we do.

Photo Credit: Harper Smith

The Working Songwriter: Dale Watson

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Our guest this week was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but, just like Davy Crockett, got to Texas as soon as he could. Dale Watson began his musical career playing the clubs of Houston before decamping to Austin and becoming a fixture in the live music capital of the world. The music machine in Nashville never fully embraced Watson’s traditionalist combination of Western swing, rockabilly, and country, but he’s built a devoted cult following the world over on his own. It’s a style of music that he calls “Ameripolitan.”

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Watson has toured with all the greats: Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. He’s appeared on The Late Show with David Lettermen, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and of course Austin City Limits. He’s performed at Stagecoach, Bristol Rhythm & Roots, and a host of other festivals.

He was a 2005 Austin Music Hall of Fame inductee and he was awarded the title of Texas State Musician in 2007. He founded the Ameripolitan Music Awards in 2014. The Austin Chronicle calls him their “local honky-tonk hero” and Saving Country Music says that “Dale Watson is all about keeping the honky-tonk traditions alive.”

I got a chance to catch up with Watson a few months ago to hear about his musical journey so far.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Are the Brudi Brothers More Cowboy Than You?

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With three-part sibling harmonies and acoustic arrangements that harken back to the music of the 1940s, the Brudi Brothers are still somehow right in step with the modern era.

Seattle-based brothers Johannes, Conrad, and George Brudi charmed millions on social media with “Me More Cowboy Than You,” a catchy and clever number written after a winter trip to San Francisco. In the midst of tech workers in puffy L.L. Bean jackets, the brothers couldn’t help but notice the occasional random guy in 1960s cowboy attire. The anachronism naturally lent itself to some gentle ribbing. Who among us hasn’t seen someone, camera in hand, doing a country fit check?

When “Me More Cowboy Than You” took off on TikTok in January 2025, the Brudi Brothers already knew how to sing loud and hold a crowd, giving them a runway to a touring career. They’ve signed business deals with Mom and Pop Records and CAA, but they’re still leaning toward the DIY aesthetic. (For example, their best friend from school is their tour manager; he even built out a trailer for them.)

@brudibrothers Wrote a mean song because we’re bad boys. Let us know if you want to hear more of it #folk #country #americana #blues #fyp #fypシ #guitar #seattle #LA #local #localmusic #harmony #bass #nationalguitar @Welles ♬ original sound – The Brudi Brothers

In the summer of 2025, the brothers broadened their audience on bills with fellow former busker, Sierra Ferrell. They’ll join her on dozens of dates this summer, too. Last November, the band made their Nashville debut at the Ryman Auditorium on a bill with 49 Winchester and Noeline Hofmann. While the brothers weren’t familiar with the history of the venue, being from the Pacific Northwest, they are well-versed in the golden era of country music.

“Being in the back of the Ryman, we saw all these photos of these legends of the national country scene from the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s,” Conrad Brudi says. “In the photos, you can see that you’re standing in the same doorway as the photo was taken. That was pretty exciting.”

Already this year they’ve opened select concerts for The Head and The Heart, headlined a club tour, and confirmed a pair of hometown dates in Seattle warming up the crowd for Kacey Musgraves. They’ve also brought in one of their favorite folk musicians, Eleni Govetas (violin and percussion) to tour with them, adding not only musical dexterity, but also a hint of instrumental mystique.

Good Country tracked down the Brudi Brothers by phone somewhere in Ohio, as they spent a day off driving to their next gig to promote their new Dark and Stormy EP.

When you hear the phrase “dark and stormy,” you might think of that literary line, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Or you might think of a rum cocktail. Now it’s the title of your EP released in April. What was it about that phrase that kind of sparked your interest?

Conrad Brudi: Actually a dream that Eleni was having. She was talking in her sleep while we were camping, and she said, “Who’s your Mr. Handsome Darkened Prairie?” – a weird character in her dream that was like a sexy version of Mr. Clean. I woke her up, like, “What’s going on?” And she said, “It was like this sexy, bald guy on a burnt prairie.”

[The title] “Mr. Handsome Darkened Prairie” would be a little bit too avant-garde. So I just changed it and wrote a song about a guy we used to busk with who died, from the perspective of his dogs. This guy was a real piece of work. Basically, there were some girls that liked him, but mostly just his dogs liked him. And I figured his dogs must miss him. So I wrote that song sort of about these two dogs who stuck with him despite the fact that he was kind of a bad guy.

You’ve been performing since you were young, right? How old were you when you started?

CB: We have been doing this since we were teenagers. I was 16 or 17 when I started. George was 14. So we have over a decade of busking and learning traditionals and standards and all these folk songs of jazz and ragtime, and bluegrass standards. We busked a lot in Europe. We were, at times, one of very few American acts in a city at that time. For much of our busking career, we’ve been sort of a novelty in town. And so coming back to America, it was daunting, not knowing how we would be accepted in the actual American music community.

How did you get linked up with Sierra Ferrell?

CB: It was just being part of the same busker circuit. All of her friends are buskers or in that community, so we know so many people who busked with her in various groups that she was part of or leading. We’ve sort of missed [crossing paths with] her for years now, but we’d always known about her and saw her online stuff and heard stories about her. So we met her on the first of May last year, officially, and we played a show with her in Albuquerque on May Day.

George Brudi: But how we got linked up is a lot less romantic than just happenstance. It was our agent who linked us up.

CB: We had been told by bookers before that we should sign with their booking agency because we could play with people like, say, Sierra Ferrell.

That’s a good pitch, right?

CB: We said, “Nah, we’ll pass on this one.” They’d say, “I guess you’ll never play with Sierra Ferrell.” So we ended up playing with her anyway.

At the Exit/In show in Nashville, you played “Moon Over Montana,” and it’s not that often you hear a Jimmy Wakely shout-out. What made you want to record that song for this EP?

CB: It’s one of those songs that does well busking, and we enjoy singing it. And it’s a fun, three-part harmony tune. Then you have that cool violin part for it. So, it was sort of thrown in last minute, actually. We were trying other songs because we wanted to put one cover on the EP. We were trying all these other things. We tried recording “Goin’ Up the Country” and we didn’t really like that. Then we tried “Moon Over Montana.” It came out naturally and sounded much better than anything else that we had tried, cover-wise, that session.

Listening to that song on the EP, you’re an impressive whistler. How did you learn to whistle?

CB: From cowboy movies, like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Ennio Morricone, “The Ecstasy of Gold.” I loved whistling that when I was a kid. That was my favorite movie, and we had really good acoustics in the bathroom where we went to school. That’s where I learned to whistle.

At that show in Nashville, you were playing originals, but you pulled out a Lonnie Johnson song and a Lead Belly song and a Sons of the Pioneers song. How did you discover this wealth of music? Where did you hear about these older artists?

CB: Our grandparents. We lived with our grandparents, and our grandpa was a Dixieland banjo player and harmonica player. Also our dad had a lot of CDs, and played fiddle and guitar. We just grew up with it. Some of it was the atmosphere we were in that led us to discover the kind of music we actually related to, as opposed to just listening to whatever our friends in school were listening to, the Top 40 or something. I think all of us have an aversion to music that doesn’t feel good to us. I don’t know how else to say it.. We all don’t listen to a whole lot of music, but when we do listen, we’ll obsess over one artist or one song or one album. And so it’s not necessarily a wide breadth, but it’s a deep trench. [Laughs]

George, when did you gravitate towards playing the upright bass?

GB: It was a little more than a year ago, right before we played “Me More Cowboy.” I was telling Johannes that I should get an upright bass and we should sing into one microphone. The bassist standing in the middle, then two guitars on the side, and we sing three-part harmony. And then I got the bass without really realizing you actually have to learn how to play upright. So, this last year, I’ve been trying as fast as I can to figure out how to play the instrument.

How did that go for you? Did you pick it up pretty quick?

GB: I think I picked up the basic technique of it quickly, then I plateaued really heavily. I’m slowly digging myself out of it, because it’s hard to make notes, but to have them be in tune is the harder part.

How did “Me More Cowboy Than You” change the game for you?

GB: It’s the reason why we’re able to tour now and why we have a record deal and all that stuff. It’s like, that’s to thank for it. But I hope that it’s seen as a jumping off point, and isn’t just like the thing that people recognize, and then they’re like, ”All right, moving on.”

Are you getting that vibe? It seems like it fits in pretty well with a general show.

CB: It’s more of our concern that the suits will see it that way. “Well, write another hit,” you know? … There was even a write-up in a big magazine that put an article out saying that “Me More Cowboy Than You” was clearly about our experience in Nashville. I looked into it. The writer was from London. It was just sort of him guessing.

I noticed as soon as you played that song in Nashville, all the phones came out. “The flickering screens,” right on cue. It’s got to feel good to have a song that everybody’s excited to hear. What is it like to travel the country with a song that people love?

GB There’s nothing really to compare it to. We played the Ryman last November and when we played that song, looking at the stained glass windows and the crowd of people in the beautiful theater, that was a pretty cool moment to realize, like, “Wow, this is the reason why we’re here.”

Photo Credit: Kat Vandergriff

From Lonesome, Gorgeous Texas Hill Country
to the World

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

There’s little to no stage banter when the Droptines play a show, with the Austin, Texas-based band sometimes cramming 30 songs into a 90-minute set. However, as their new album, Drought Flower proves, they still have plenty to say. Their original songs touch on broken relationships (“Old Tricks”), family grief (“Mamaw,” featuring Sarah Jarosz), and losing loved ones to addiction (“What Ate My Friend”). As a nod to classic country, there’s often a little bit of clever wordplay to offset the drama, too.

Named for the downturned deer antlers that are prized by hunters, the Droptines (rhymes with “stop signs”) first took shape with an EP release in 2019. Lead singer-songwriter Conner Arthur has since guided the group through indie albums, relentless touring, and now their debut set on Big Loud Texas, the label founded by Miranda Lambert and Jon Randall. The five-piece band hasn’t yet moved into a tour bus, though. Instead, they travel in a retrofitted school bus with upgrades that would impress any road musician. (It sleeps 10 people and has a bathroom, two air conditioners, and a built-in trailer space.)

Growing up in the Texas Hill Country town of Concan, Arthur watched countless musicians play at his family’s venue, House Pasture Cattle Company, during the summer season of city folks floating the Frio River. But the rest of the year, when nothing was really going in town, influenced him just as much.

“I learned how to be alone in Concan,” Arthur says. “I learned how to clear my mind and ignore my hunger pangs. But I would always watch and study people. Especially because if you’re driving through Concan in, say, January, and you see a car that you don’t recognize or someone you don’t recognize, you’re shocked and you want to go talk to them. You’re just caught in your own little village for so long. Having an outside perspective from my little narrow worldview was very, very important to me.”

A few days ahead of a full slate of tour dates (and just before stocking the school bus), Arthur called into Good Country to talk about what inspired the new music.

For people who haven’t been to the Texas Hill Country, how would you describe it?

Conner Arthur: The drama of the limestone bluffs, the crystal clear waters of the Frio River – man, it’s hard not to have a religious experience every other day. Especially when it rains and the floodwaters start moving. Everything there is so dramatic and explosive and chaotic. From the summer to the off-season, you have three months of complete and utter chaos, then the rest of the year is just silent. There are some days where I’d walk out and just sit there looking at River Road waiting for a car to drive by. And I was starting to freak out, thinking that I was the last person on Earth.

More than likely I think that made its way into my personal life. It’s just a large juxtaposition, and a dichotomy of high highs and low lows. But I learned how to handle it, growing up there. We didn’t get internet or cell phone service until 2012, and that’s a great way to grow up. My backyard was 200,000 acres. I could ride horses without hitting a fence line for miles. I wish that more people had that upbringing. I wish that I could provide that for my kids.

If you didn’t get the internet until 2012, then you got to experience live music at your family’s venue before the cell phones in the air and people documenting every show.

Oh yeah. The funny thing about House Pasture is [that] it’s changed hands but it stayed in the family. My biological father and my uncle started it. They failed, so my grandpa bought it from them. And then it was kind of a “break even” type of venue. It was just an addendum for someone who’s gonna go down to Concan and float the Frio anyway. Like, “Oh, we can go see so-and-so.” I mean, I’ve got scars all from being this tall and women ashing cigarettes out on my collarbone. Not on purpose!

I learned more about what I didn’t want to be, seeing the evolution of the Texas country scene come through there. I saw that evolution get commercialized in the mid-2000s, like 2005 and 2006. But when I was a little guy, I got to see the Great Divide. I got to see Gary P. Nunn. I got to see John Conlee. I got to see Earl Thomas Conley. I got to see all these really high-class acts. Reckless Kelly is still one of my favorites from that era. Robert Earl Keen, the list goes on. Even if I didn’t like it, the song’s going to be in my head. It is still red dirt Texas country. I still know every word to all these other musicians’ stuff that I’m not a fan of, because it’s just ingrained in you. You can’t avoid it in that environment.

What were you doing before you jumped into music?

I was in construction throughout high school and I’ve gone back and forth over the years when I needed money. But when I was 18 years old, my mom pretty much gave me an ultimatum. She said, “If you don’t go to college, you’re cut off.” And I was like, “Well, I don’t really care. I don’t like ultimatums.” So I grabbed my banjo and I hitchhiked the country for about a year and a half.

I got back home, and that was like going 90 miles an hour into a brick wall. The fantasies in my head were dashed out by my mom’s disappointment. She said, “You’re gonna have to get a job.” So I went back to construction for a little bit, then I joined up in the oil field. I was an oil field mechanic for about two years, and I said, “I’m not going to die out here in the Eagle Ford Shale.” So I made a decision. Just to give me some more confidence, I went to the bluegrass program in Levelland, Texas, at the [South Plains] College. I did that for two years and went home and knocked out our first EP with David Beck.

I knew you played the banjo, but I didn’t know that you had studied bluegrass.

Dillon [Sampson], our bass player, and I both went to South Plains and he’s way more of a bluegrass cat than I, but my story about how I got into playing banjo is just kind of happenstance. My older brother came into some money when we were young, and I won’t go into the details on how he got it, but it was burning a hole in his pocket. He bought this Deering Goodtime open-back banjo and it was sitting in the back of his truck. I was about 14 and I had plenty of guitars floating around the house. And I had a piano, but I never really broke through on it because it was just an instrument for me to get a song out.

I don’t know if it was the open tuning or just the fact that it’s hard to not have a good time playing banjo, but I broke through on it. I could start developing an understanding of music theory and scales. I don’t know why it made sense in my mind that it was less intimidating than 72 keys or six strings. You go down that road, and then are you a gimmick banjo player or are you good? That’s what led me to South Plains. I’m not going to disrespect the institution of bluegrass or the instrument of banjo. I’m going to do my best to play it. But I need to play more. I need to stay on it, because that is not a bike. Your agility and endurance of playing the banjo collapses if you’re not tickling it once or twice a day.

Is that the same for writing with you? Do you need to consistently write, or can you put that away for a while and come back to writing?

I’m always kind of writing in my head and building concepts, then I’ll scribble it down. I’ll more than likely lose the piece of paper I scribbled it down on, but I’ve always said if it’s worth remembering, then I’ll remember it. But I probably lost a thousand songs that way. It’s like a floodgate. I sit around and I’ll have an idea, and I’ll get a quarter way through it, blah, blah… But it’s not until the band all sits down in a room and we all have the intention to write, and these things just… “Boom!” There goes the dam.

In several of your songs, there are references to pills or addiction. On this record, you have “What Ate My Friend.” That’s a reality for a lot of people. When you’re tackling a heavy topic like that, how do you get into that headspace, knowing you’re going to jump into something serious?

A lot of that, it’s lived in for sure. I’ve had men that came before me that did it so I didn’t have to. Back to, I know what not to do now. And my brother Landry being one of them. I lost him to all that shit a couple years ago. He and I were Irish twins. The same thing happened to my biological dad’s brother. At the same age, the same exact circumstance, and they both died on their birthday.

“What Ate My Friend,” I can’t even remember writing that one, but I know that I showed up with all of it, and that’s rare. I have this band to lean on, but I showed up with every bit of that. This was all here. It’s not just about my brother, but a couple friends I have. Just like, “I know you’re on meth, dude, but why is it making you a liar?” Like, you can be honest with me, just tell me. It’s getting in the way of our friendship if you’re going to turn into a liar.

I thought there was a nuance, kind of, what I refer to as the days of country gold, the wordplay of like, “She’s Acting Single (I’m Drinking Doubles).” That’s so important in country and bluegrass music – that play on words – and that one is like, “Hey man, what’s eating at you?” All right, what’s the extreme of that? “What ate my friend?” I thought it was pretty decent, but yeah, that’s a rough one, you know, but it’s real, unfortunately. It’s real for a lot of people. And I hate that. I hate that anybody has to suffer.

You’ve been around music from the time you’re a kid, and now you’re doing this full time. What has surprised you the most about this career path that you’re on?

The main one is that there’s viability. I said this in an interview before, but I just thought playing music was a good excuse to be a loser. And then to see it all pan out! It starts to feel like work, but work is good, especially if it bears fruit, which it is, and it’s starting to even more so. But to be able to build a foundation for my future family off of the back of these songs, that right there is top tier, number one, the most important thing. I can’t be more grateful for that and the blessings that God’s given us. Just having people come religiously to your shows, and singing words, it gives you faith in live music, for sure. It is a little shocking to me, at the end of the day that I didn’t make all this up.

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Photo Credit: Jessie Addleman

See the Winners From the 59th Annual CMA Awards

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On November 19, 2025 the 59th Annual CMA Awards were broadcast live on ABC from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. Hosted by Lainey Wilson for the second year in a row, the primetime awards show is now streaming on Hulu for any viewers who were unable to tune in live. Wilson not only hosted, she also dominated the awards, taking home trophies for Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, and the evening’s top honor, Entertainer of the Year. The Louisianan country sensation has now won 12 CMA Awards out of 25 nominations in just four years of eligibility – including two Entertainer of the Year wins.

The other standout award recipient of the night was “you look like you love me,” a viral hit for mainstream country stars Ella Langley & Riley Green. The track garnered trophies for Single of the Year, Song of the Year, and Music Video of the Year. Meanwhile Post Malone, who has now been nominated for CMA Awards five times over the past two years, landed his very first CMA Award for Musical Event of the Year for his song, “Pour Me A Drink,” featuring Blake Shelton. Bluegrass-steeped country phenomenon Zach Top also received his first CMA Award – for New Artist of the Year – after two huge, breakout years for everyone’s new favorite neo-traditionalist.

The broadcast included live performances and exciting collaborations from artists like Wilson, Top, Kenny Chesney, Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Shaboozey and Stephen Wilson Jr., the Red Clay Strays, Tucker Wetmore, and many more. Legendary country, bluegrass, and Americana multi-hyphenate Vince Gill was honored with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award – the presentation featuring a surprise appearance by last year’s awardee, George Strait. Gill’s longtime pal and collaborator, pedal steel guitarist extraordinaire Paul Franklin, took home the award for Musician of the Year.

Chesney, who recently released a best-selling book, Heart Life Music, performed a medley of “American Kids” and “When the Sun Goes Down.” to mark his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fme, and to celebrate his fellow newly minted Hall of Fame members June Carter Cash and Tony Brown, too. Brandi Carlile and Patty Loveless joined together to honor Gill with a rousing performance of “When I Call Your Name,” a No. 2 Billboard hit for Gill that shone and sparkled on the CMA stage with rich, reedy harmonies by Carlile and Loveless.

Fans can stream the CMA Awards Show now on Hulu. Find the full list of nominees and winners (in bold) for the 59th Annual CMA Awards below:

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

Luke Combs
Cody Johnson
Chris Stapleton
Morgan Wallen
Lainey Wilson

SINGLE OF THE YEAR

“4x4xU” – Lainey Wilson
Producer: Jay Joyce
Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce

“Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma” – Luke Combs
Producers: Luke Combs, Chip Matthews, Jonathan Singleton
Mix Engineer: Chip Matthews

“Am I Okay?” – Megan Moroney
Producer: Kristian Bush
Mix Engineer: Justin Niebank

“I Never Lie” – Zach Top
Producer: Carson Chamberlain
Mix Engineer: Matt Rovey

“you look like you love me” – Ella Langley & Riley Green
Producer: Will Bundy
Mix Engineer: Jim Cooley

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Am I Okay? – Megan Moroney
Producer: Kristian Bush
Mix Engineer: Justin Niebank

Cold Beer & Country Music – Zach Top
Producer: Carson Chamberlain
Mix Engineer: Matt Rovey

F-1 Trillion – Post Malone
Producers: Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome, Hoskins
Mix Engineer: Ryan Gore

I’m The Problem – Morgan Wallen
Producers: Jacob Durrett, Charlie Handsome, Joey Moi
Mix Engineers: Charlie Handsome, Joey Moi

Whirlwind – Lainey Wilson
Producer: Jay Joyce
Mix Engineers: Jason Hall, Jay Joyce

SONG OF THE YEAR

“4x4xU”
Songwriters: Jon Decious, Aaron Raitiere, Lainey Wilson

“Am I Okay?”
Songwriters: Jessie Jo Dillon, Luke Laird, Megan Moroney

“I Never Lie”
Songwriters: Carson Chamberlain, Tim Nichols, Zach Top

“Texas”
Songwriters: Johnny Clawson, Josh Dorr, Lalo Guzman, Kyle Sturrock

“you look like you love me”
Songwriters: Riley Green, Ella Langley, Aaron Raitiere

FEMALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

Kelsea Ballerini
Miranda Lambert
Ella Langley
Megan Moroney
Lainey Wilson

MALE VOCALIST OF THE YEAR

Luke Combs
Cody Johnson
Chris Stapleton
Zach Top
Morgan Wallen

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

Lady A
Little Big Town
Old Dominion
Rascal Flatts
The Red Clay Strays

VOCAL DUO OF THE YEAR

Brooks & Dunn
Brothers Osborne
Dan + Shay
Maddie & Tae
The War And Treaty

MUSICAL EVENT OF THE YEAR

“Don’t Mind If I Do” – Riley Green (featuring Ella Langley)
Producers: Scott Borchetta, Jimmy Harnen, Dann Huff

“Hard Fought Hallelujah” – Brandon Lake with Jelly Roll
Producer: Micah Nichols

“I’m Gonna Love You” – Cody Johnson (with Carrie Underwood)
Producer: Trent Willmon

“Pour Me A Drink” – Post Malone (feat. Blake Shelton)
Producers: Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome

“You Had To Be There” – Megan Moroney (feat. Kenny Chesney)
Producer: Kristian Bush

MUSICIAN OF THE YEAR

Jenee Fleenor – Fiddle
Paul Franklin – Steel Guitar
Brent Mason – Guitar
Rob McNelley – Guitar
Derek Wells – Guitar

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE YEAR

“Am I Okay?” – Megan Moroney
Directors: Alexandra Gavillet, Megan Moroney

“I’m Gonna Love You” – Cody Johnson (with Carrie Underwood)
Director: Dustin Haney

“Somewhere Over Laredo” – Lainey Wilson
Director: TK McKamy

“Think I’m In Love With You” – Chris Stapleton
Director: Running Bear

“you look like you love me” – Ella Langley & Riley Green
Directors: Ella Langley, John Park, Wales Toney

NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Ella Langley
Shaboozey
Zach Top
Tucker Wetmore
Stephen Wilson Jr.

Photo Credit: Lainey Wilson by CeCe Dawson

Outlaw Country That’ll Make You Smile

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Holding the attention of a roomful of moderately smashed bar-goers is no small feat, let alone with a traditional Irish folksong. But last May, country singer-songwriter Dylan Earl ended his set at Brooklyn’s Skinny Dennis standing on top of the bar and singing an a cappella version of “Wild Mountain Thyme.”

“Will you go, lassie go/ And we’ll all go together/ To pull wild mountain thyme/ All around the blooming heather,” Earl implored in his warm baritone, towering above the room in worn jeans, boots, and a sleeves-cut-off T-shirt from his Arkansas-based label, Gar Hole Records. In spite of all the alcohol collectively consumed by the listeners who packed the venue to its beer-tinged walls that evening, the room was just about as quiet as a divey honky-tonk can be.

By ending his set with the kind of folk song which, passed down through generations, comprises one major lineage of country music – indeed, “Wild Mountain Thyme” is based in a much older Scottish folk song – Earl invoked a deep vernacular tradition and history often left out of modern country. Earl’s music attracts labels like “old-school” and “classic country,” and his voice certainly lends itself to those comparisons, but his own compositions convey a whole lot more. Rejecting the banality of tired Southern stereotypes, Earl writes punk-hearted, poetic music rooted in a love of people and place; music which is both socially and class-conscious and captures wide-ranging cultural unease and indignation with nuance and wit.

On his fourth studio album, Level-Headed Even Smile (released September 19), Earl makes clear that his is not a return to a bygone era so much as a carrying on of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and of imbuing dimension and worth into the lives of overlooked characters and issues too easily reduced to absolutes.

“I’d rather be an outlaw than in with the law/ All this authority worship is the strangest thing I ever saw,” he sings in “Outlaw Country,” a thesis statement of sorts for the album and Earl himself. Earl wrote “Outlaw Country” out of frustration at how many people made assumptions about his beliefs and morals because of his appearance – and because he plays country music with a whole lot of Southern twang. Earl wanted to make it clear where he stands.

“I finished high school in a very rural part of Arkansas; I identify with the Deep South, but I don’t identify with its most prevalent fucking right-wing rhetoric… I still want to remain approachable to those people I completely disagree with, because I think that’s an important part of making art, is creating discourse,” he says. “I want to try to approach these people and try to have that conversation. Be like, ‘Listen here, brother, I’m just like you, but you don’t have to be a racist piece of shit. It’s way more fun in life to be happy and be inclusive. Your soul will be happier because of that.’”

Lately, outlaw country morphed from its subversive roots into a shorthand for wicked good independent country or a slightly more specific alternative to Americana. While both wicked good and independent, Earl’s version also rekindles contempt for the establishment that fueled the original outlaw country movement:

I’d rather be a bootlegger than a bootlicker
A side stepper than a homewrecker
And I don’t get a pick me up
From putting other people down

It’s clear to see by the air I breathe
Working class solidarity
Is the only way
We’re gonna stamp that fascist out

Sardonic and irreverent, “Outlaw Country” is an anthem for anyone who ever believed in love and community over corruption and power. But rather than a callback, Earl’s music is of and for the next generation of ne’er-do-wells and dreamers living on the fringes, hoping for something better.

Earl grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he split his time between separated parents. Chafing at the craven habits of money and influence that he witnessed from his father, a powerful local lawyer, Earl preferred the warmth and love he felt in the house his mother shared with his grandmother. (Despite a rocky childhood, Earl’s now building a relationship with his dad.)

“I was living in poverty on one side and then I was living in opulence on the other side, and the poverty side is where I wanted to be, because that’s where all the love was,” Earl says. “I’m so lucky to have that, to be able to have identified where love was at a young age and identify where my soul felt good.”

Earl’s mother showed him how to seek joy and adventure, filling life with road trips and camping weekends. When he was just five years old, Earl’s mother plopped a map in his lap and taught him to navigate. Perpetually tight on money and resources and mired in an enduring custody battle with his father, she nonetheless taught him how to get away from it all, instilling in him a curiosity about the world. On the road, they stopped to check out historical markers, explored parks and rivers and the Gulf Coast, and watched giant boats come in while picnicking along the Intracoastal Waterway.

“That developed a sense of wonder and being like, ‘I don’t fucking need money to feel this type of happiness, to feel this sense of joy and adventure and love of life, just life in its purest form,” Earl says, choking up. (He firmly believes more men should cry, and that it helps him be more humane.)

“Her sense of adventure, her true passion for living, it’s amazing to me; it still is amazing to me.”

The album’s title and thematic heart – level-headed even smile – are derived from that approach to living life fully. For Earl, it’s an essential mechanism of coping and connecting. Remain engaged in the world and aware of all its horrors and tragedies, he says, but then, when it gets to be too much, know when and how to take a break:

Some nights I’m crying on the backroads
Rolling my smoke backwards
Trying to keep a level-headed even smile
Don’t you know I might take a while to get there
Just hoping I get anywhere
Trying to keep a little level-headed even smile

“At some point we’ve got to unplug from the fucking screen and just go explore things that are fucking real, like the trees around us, or the grass, or the water, or the sun or the moon, and try to get in touch with that more primal sense of ourselves,” Earl says. “That is where we can really most quickly and most efficiently achieve happiness, it’s getting in touch with the simplest form of ourselves.”

Beside the love from his mother, Earl describes himself as a depressed kid who struggled in school and wanted desperately to escape his hometown and father and stepmother. At 15, he convinced his father to send him to boarding school which, in part because of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of Louisiana, ended up being in rural Arkansas. At the Subiaco Abbey and Academy, Earl studied with monks who’d taken a vow of poverty and offered rigorous, benevolent study, kindness, and care. Though he’s an atheist, Earl counts the monks, whom he visits regularly, as mentors, connecting with them still through shared spirituality.

“We all fucking showed up pissed off as hell. And we found love and we found love amongst each other; we found love from those monks and found nature,” Earl says, reverently, of his time at Subiaco. “It saved my fucking life. The whole thing; I found joy and happiness for the first time in my life.”

Level-Headed Even Smile is dedicated to Earl’s late friend, William, who was the first to befriend him at Subiaco. “He helped me clear my heart,” Earl says. As he sings of those halcyon days on “Two Kinds of Loner,” “We were two kinds of loner/ A misfit and a wayward son…”

Armed with the sense of wonder his mom taught him, liberated by the fallow morals of youth, and subsumed by the ready escapism afforded by their surroundings, Earl and William learned every back road. They’d steal beer from the back of William’s dad’s Crossroads Tavern and drive for hours exploring the backwoods and levees along the Arkansas River.

“William was the first to show me the country air. Hanging out with him, something about getting in that truck after class, taking off down Lile Ridge Road, cracking a beer, putting on whatever weird music he was listening to at the time, that was the first sense of fucking true freedom I ever had in my life,” Earl says.

Stopping just shy of wistful, “Two Kinds of Loner” is a bittersweet, intimate portrait of the desperately important work of becoming oneself as a teenager – and of the raw beauty in forming kinship through human connection rather than blood relation:

Down where the kudzu meets the bodark
And the darkness first let go of me
High in a cab of a buddy I had
He showed me the county air
I used to not care about nothing
Because no one seemed to care for me

After high school, Earl attended Hendrix College, a liberal arts school which lived up to its name situated in Conway, Arkansas. A few years earlier, Earl borrowed his father’s old guitar – a Yamaha FG 180 Red Tag, which he still plays today – and learned enough chords to make himself useful around a bonfire and impress the local girls. Encouraged by one of the monks at Subiaco, who noticed him straying from lesson plans, Earl started writing his own music.

When he got to college, he landed feet first in a robust DIY music scene. Together with a group of friends – including Gar Hole Records cofounder and label manager Kurt DeLashmet – Earl played a circuit of local house venues: White House, Blue House, Brick House, and occasionally Shit Mansion, where both also lived for a time. To this day, their two-day, 28-band Butt Ranger music festival thrown by friends at the White House remains one of Earl’s favorite shows.

“We were drunk off our fucking asses on plastic bottle whiskey and snorting Adderall and fucking ripping cigs and shit like that. It was fucked up. It was so awesome. It was just blood and piss everywhere,” Earl says. He recalls the floor at White House buckling so deeply that by the end of the night all his gear, including his oversized amp, wound up in a pile in the middle of the floor. Volume was of primary concern, tone and other nuances distinctly secondary. “What a fucking beautiful, carnal, amazing culture to be a part of,” he says.

Two songs on Even Smile come from those early days playing music first in college and, afterwards, in Little Rock, where Earl and his band Swampbird moved. (Earl lived in Little Rock for a few years then moved to Fayetteville, where he still lives.) Both songs are paeans to the chaotic moil of early adulthood rendered heady and hazy by too much booze and too little grounding: “Broken Parts,” which he first recorded with Swampbird, and “Little Rock Bottom,” about his time in Arkansas’ capital city.

“I don’t really quite realize it until I am talking about it, how much of my life and my story is wound up into that album,” Earl, who’s now in his mid-30s, admits. The album feels like a fitting way to process and close that chapter of life. “I do feel like I’ve left it on the table and I’ve left it all out on the field, so to speak.”

In total, Even Smile is a loving, layered depiction of both Arkansas specifically and the south in general. Among his many influences, Earl includes Arkansas gonzo poet Frank Stanford (who also attended Subiaco and whose burial there Lucinda Williams memorialized in her song, “Pineola”). Stanford’s realism and wild abandon creep into Earl’s songwriting sensibilities; they share a love of the South and its complexities and a reverence for and dedication to illuminating those stories.

Alongside a few cheeky disquisitions on life on the fringes – including road dog ode “Get In The Truck” – throughout the album Earl relishes the beauty of his home territory. Perhaps nowhere more so than on “High On The Ouachitas,” an extended soliloquy on the wild beauty of the mountain range, his chosen retreat for a reset and solace:

When I’m high on Ouachita
High as I ever saw the Arkansas
With goldenrod and reindeer lichen
Twist flowers in bloom
There’s just no place
I’d rather waste my afternoons
Than high on Ouachita

“I love it so fucking much, because I know all of the nuance and I know all the beauty that’s deep underneath all of the stereotypes. And just how fascinatingly complex our communities are,” Earl says. “It’s fucking beautiful. You have two and a half million acres of national forest. So we have the cleanest drinking water in America; we have endless amounts of outdoor recreation; the food is fucking kick ass; the people are the sweetest ever.”

Earl rounded out Level-Headed Even Smile with two very on-theme cover songs: beloved Arkansas folksinger Jimmy Driftwood’s “White River Valley,” a love letter to Arkansas’s pastoral beauty, and Utah Phillips’ peripatetic wanderer’s lament, “Rock Me to Sleep,” which concludes the album. Together they bracket the glib “Lawn Chair,” written with Cameron Duddy and Jonathan Terrell.

Earl jokes when playing the song live that it might be the worst song he’s ever written. And superficially it sounds like the kind of redneck anthem that might confirm the uneducated listener’s worst stereotypes about uncouth Arkansans: “It’s a whipass life just being me/ It don’t cost much to be the free/ I got my lawn chair/ And I’m sitting on top of the world.” Yet the song is also a sly rebuke against taking everything too seriously. Convivial in its roughness, it’s a gleeful, carefree reminder of the many ways to keep a level-headed even smile.

“If I’m feeling bogged down and feeling depressed, oftentimes it has nothing to do with the task at hand, it’s just that I’ve been absorbing how terrible the fucking world is and it makes me incapable of interacting and interfacing with my immediate world, because I’m so fucking caught up in that goddamn bullshit… and it is not allowing you to reach your full potential as a biological piece of anatomy that is somehow living on this planet,” Earl says.

“[A level-headed even smile is] an attempt to focus on your humanness and try to reattach yourself to the earth and detach from the problems of the earth; and just go out and find your smile. Go find your joy amongst all the fucking evil.”

Photo Credit: Justin Cook

Classic Country
Is Here to Stay

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a new generation boasting unapologetic traditional influence, there’s more classic-sounding country in the mainstream today than in many years before. With his second album, When I Write the Song, Jake Worthington captures one specific aspect of honky-tonk history better than the rest – its sense of humor.

That’s definitely not to say Worthington’s new album is a joke. Far from it. Over 14 songs, the Texas native sinks down into the depths of sorrow and lets his heart believe in miracles all the same. His love of the classic country form is just as authentic as his barrel-chested vocal twang, and with producers Jon Randall and Chuck Ainley joining his team, it gets highlighted with more sincerity than ever. But right from the opening track, Worthington walks in the footsteps of artists like Johnny Paycheck or Jerry Reed; his down-home demeanor is as country as it gets.

Meanwhile, the solo-written title track is almost alarmingly personal and Worthington welcomes Miranda Lambert, Marty Stuart, and Mae Estes as special guests on other tracks. When I Write the Song arrived on September 12 and by touring through the end of the year with both Jon Pardi and Zach Top, Worthington adds even more evidence of an ongoing trad renaissance.

Good Country spoke with Worthington about writing the way he lives and chasing honky-tonk inspiration farther than ever. Plus, he reveals a secret appreciation fans might not suspect.

For fans who don’t necessarily know, you have always been a proud purveyor of the classic country arts. I think that’s pretty fair to say. Are fans going to get more of that on this record or what?

Jake Worthington: Damn right. Yes, sir. I guess that whole narrative don’t ever really change for me. I don’t ever want to make any other kind of music. When somebody listens to a record that I am a part of or put together, I hope they can have a definitive direction to point to and say “That’s what country music sounds like.”

I think that comes across for sure. Now, it’s good timing because there’s kind of a little traditional renaissance going on in the mainstream. Do you agree with that?

Damn right. Absolutely. I’ve never been more inspired in terms of our genre than I am right now. I think a lot of people are writing and singing and recording great country music and I think that folks of all ages are wanting to hear it. Another thing, too, is I don’t think it’s a fad of any sort. I find it interesting – you hear terms like “traditional” or the whole “’90s” deal or whatever. To me, it’s just country music getting made in 2025. I think that’s really exciting, to know that’s the case. It wasn’t like that just a couple years ago.

So you don’t think it’s people cosplaying country?

I know it’s genuine for me. I can’t control what other people do, but hey, if they want to play dress up, that don’t bother me none. I think it’s good for country music. I’m glad that they’re wanting to dress like a grownup.

One thing that I’ve always loved about classic country itself, and something that you do well on this record, is to have a touch of humor. That’s not around as much anymore, but you do that well.

Well, I think it’s funny. I have always struggled with the idea that I never wanted to not be taken serious as a singer or songwriter, but I still like to have fun. I still cut up and it ain’t all rain and storms all the time. I think country music allows room for all of that. There’s definitely a couple songs on this record that is lighthearted, and I guess I was all right with that.

There’s definitely some hardcore heartbreak in here, but the reason I ask is because of the opening track, “It Ain’t the Whiskey.” There are not many songs about getting pulled over and accused of a DUI these days – even fewer that are fun.

Well, some of us write from the research department, I guess. Unfortunately, I was just trying to make light of what was a really shitty situation for me at one point in time in my life. I’ve made some dumb decisions in my adolescence, I guess. That was a good way to look back and laugh at it.

How about “Two First Names”? This one reminds me of a little bit of Joe Diffie and the way he was able to merge classic country and a funny line.

Well, shoot man, thanks. That’s just about a country girl. I’ve got a handful of women I know and love in my life that got two first names and I love that we got away with writing it without ever saying an actual name. … There wasn’t one of us that wrote that song who ain’t from the country, and we’ve all got women we love and know that got two first names. We all love a country girl.

Hell yeah. Now, one thing about this record, you definitely got to work with some big names. You got Jon Randall and Chuck Ainley helping out on production, along with Joey Moi. I wonder with those two guys specifically, Jon and Chuck, did they help you move your sound or your style forward?

Definitely I think. There’s four tracks that I recorded top to bottom with Chuck and Jon … there’s a lot of really awesome things that I got to do through working with Joey. But I think for me, I wasn’t ever totally happy with the way things were ending up sonically. That was my biggest change that I was after, was just kind of where it landed sonically.

Really?

Especially with the vocal. I’m a very imperfect singer. I’m not a perfect singer. I want that to be heard. I don’t want to be masked.

Joey’s amazing, but he definitely comes from a different world sonically, right?

Yeah, and I wanted to work with guys that were making country records that inspired me. But again, I tracked nine of them songs with Joey and man, I love all of it. Chuck wound up mixing the record and Jon come in when we went to track the last four songs and it’s been a dream come true. I get to work with my heroes, man.

You also got to work with Miranda Lambert [plus Marty Stuart and Mae Estes]. Tell me about doing “Hello Shitty Day” with Miranda, it’s a cool broken-hearted waltz. Did you guys get to know each other?

Sure. I mean, I know it sounds a little simple, but she had texted me the song and I asked if I could cut it. She said yes and I said, “Would you sing on it?” And she said, “Hell yes,” so by God, that’s what we did. I don’t know, man. I wasn’t trying to get on the radio with that song. I just thought it was brilliant. I love that song.

One thing I’ve got to ask you, since this is BGS. Do you have any ties to bluegrass, or was that ever a part of what you listened to?

Where I’m from, oddly enough down there in Southeast Texas, we had to go find that stuff. There’s nooks and crannies in East Texas where these cats kinda start out in bluegrass and I think they find it through gospel music and stuff like that. But I wasn’t in the church or nothing – I was baptized in beer and I’m here to testify, you hear me?

Ha!

The great words of Kevin Fowler. But a lot of the stuff I loved the most was coming out of Ohio. When I discovered Dave Evans, that shit knocked me out.

Really?

Oh gosh. There’s something called “99 Years [Is Almost for Life].” One day I’d like to record it, but I understand that bluegrass is just as sacred as country music, so if you’re going to do it, you got to do it right and I think it starts with putting your heart and soul in it.

But I always loved Ralph Stanley. I’ve always loved Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe. I mean, that might sound a little standard, but I love that stuff. Harley Allen’s one of my favorite songwriters and his daddy, Red Allen, I love the records he done. Ronnie Bowman and Lonesome River Band. I like that stuff.

Short answer – yes, sir. Hell yes. I love bluegrass.

That’s amazing. It sounds like you’re deep into it. I mean, maybe it doesn’t show up too much in what you’re doing right now, but maybe one day you ought to do a bluegrass record.

Oh, man. We’ll see, but right now all I want to do is what sounds like country music to me. I think it’s a matter of if you got electrics on it or not. It’s just soul music. It’s gotta come from the heart.

That’s a good segue because I wanted to ask you about the title track, “When I Write the Song,” and writing that solo. You were able to share your pain quite a bit. Where did that come from?

I don’t always wind up writing by myself. I think a lot of us writers sit down and try, and if we could, we would write a lot by ourselves. But that one just kind of fell out. I’d been six, seven years in [to my career] and I don’t know, I think I was a little hurt and kind of angry. I got a whole lot of, “You can’t sing that kind of music. That ain’t never going to work.” Sad songs and waltzes and whatnot. I don’t know why it’s so easy to write about the hard things or the bad things. It seems to be easier than it is to write about the good things sometimes. That’s just kind of where I was at with it.

When I wrote it, I was headed home from some gig and at the time I had been staying at my parents’. They had just got one of them push button door locks to the house with a code on it and I did not remember the damn code. There wasn’t no way I was getting in the house, so I had a guitar and a six pack of beer, a back porch, and plenty of time.

You’re kidding.

That’s what come out of that. I sat on that song for a long time. I was kind of scared of it. I wasn’t sure if it was for anybody. I wasn’t sure if it was any good. But I’m a songwriter and I think that’s just my way of showing it.

That’s real country music to me, so thank you for sharing the story. It’s funny that you got locked out – almost feels meant to be.

I’ve been locked out of a lot of things, hoss.

You’re going to be out on the road with Zach Top and Jon Pardi, right? In their own way, they both definitely inject some classic country into the mainstream, too. Are those tours a good fit for you?

Damn right, man. You tell me anywhere else, you’re going to see three steel guitars and three fiddle players in one stage. … I’m a fan of both of them guys and they know it, and I revere and respect the hell out of them. I’m grateful to get to go work with ‘em. That’s going to be a lot of band, buddy.

All right, Jake, thanks for the time, man. Let me leave you with the big picture. Just tell me what you hope people get from this record.

Well, take away a little piece of my heart while I’m giving it to you. Country music’s here to stay and I don’t think it ever left. I’m just grateful to be a little spoke in the wheels and I hope that when they hear this record, it’s something that they can go to and say, “This is what country music sounds like.”

Photo Credit: Jim Wright