contents
cmp
Features
December 2018
N
ot to
10 William Michael Morgan
I
DUNCAN WARWICK SPEAKS TO THE major label star waving the
flag for traditional country music.
t ain’t easy these days being a traditional country with a major
record label deal. It can be hard to be recognised by country
radio among the RnB infused pop offerings and even harder to
have hit records because of it. William Michael Morgan is one
such example of the endangered species. It’s almost a miracle that
he ever charted at all with his debut I Met A Girl in 2015, let alone
go Top Ten. It probably didn’t hurt that the song was co-written
by Sam Hunt, and it neatly connected the worlds of both old and
new. Criminally, the follow-up single, Missing, barely cracked the
Top 50. Penned by Rhett Akins, it is one of the finest examples of a
commercial slice of neo-traditionalism you are likely to hear this
side of 2010. Even Akins himself, who can write across the board,
says, “I would say my country songs kind of sound like early George
Strait,” and he’s not kidding. The title track of Morgan’s debut album,
Vinyl, failed to chart at all and those of us raised on a diet of Mark
Chesnutt, Tracy Lawrence, Joe Diffie and such feared we might have
heard the last of William Michael Morgan on a major label. He’s way
too country for that!
“I get that. I get that,” says WMM assuredly, “And that’s something
that Warner…I have to say, they have been really good with us. With
Cody Johnson now...They’re really good at letting their artists, within
reason obviously, let us do what we want to do. Be creative how we
do it, making music that we want to, say the things that we want to
say, and that’s something that I don’t think we would have been able
to do if we were at a different label.”
The history of his label and their part in the new traditional
movement of the mid-80s isn’t wasted on WMM either.
“They [WB] turned a lot of things around. Storms Of Life and I
guess Randy [Travis] and Ricky [Skaggs]…A lot of people don’t give
Ricky Skaggs enough credit either, because he was a huge part of
that turn along with Keith Whitley and a handful of others. But that
Storms Of Life record was iconic. Still is.”
Warner Bros have indeed stood by their artists like few others
in this day and age, and new songs have started to trickle out on
WMM’s website. Most notable among them is Brokenhearted.
It’s another on which Akins is one of the writers, one that Mark
Chesnutt would’ve been proud to call his own, and it’s another
Like a major label anomaly William Michael Morgan strives to keep Brokenhearted songs alive.
14 Week In The Life... - Mark Hagen
Mark Hagen behind the scenes at the biggest week in country music.
20 Randall King
William
Michael
MORGAN
10 cmp - DECEMBER 2018
Duncan Warwick speaks to author Jake Brown about the hit songwriters.
50 Josh Turner
WEEK
LIFE ...
IN THE
Mark
Hagen
(BBC Radio 2 Producer)
8-15 Nov 2018
The album he’s always wanted to make.
53 Country’s Protest Songs
We pick some of the best.
56 Connie Smith
Kelly Gregory talks to the legendary singer about her new compilation.
11
Alex Rossi hears from the fast rising Texas singer and songwriter.
24 Nashville Songwriter
DECEMBER 2018 - cmp
Page 10
Bob Harris Country
BBC Radio 2
Thursdays 8-9pm
bbc.co.uk
“ A
h, November - poppies, fireworks, crisp
autumn nights and the busiest week in
the Bob Harris Country calendar! Busy
because, of course, it’s the CMA Awards
and so we decamp to Nashville for 5 days to cover the
event for Radio 2, to record as many sessions for the
programme as we can pack in, renew old friendships,
make new ones and generally stoke the fires of the
programme for the year to come.
In common with most Radio 2 programmes, “Bob Harris
Country” is not a huge operation: Bob presents it, I do
everything else and our editor is Al Booth, with the team
expanding for bigger events like our coverage of the
C2C weekend and this coming week. It also sometimes
shrinks - Radio 2’s coverage of the CMA Music Festival
for example typically consists of me with a tape
recorder!
In the last couple of years, the BBC has also reacquired
the rights to the CMA TV show, and so Bob and I also
have to film the opening links for that before sending all
the material back to London for a quick turnaround edit.
But before all that, we have a live radio programme to
make...
big hitters from the Nashville mainstream.
Bob is in the studio, and I’m in the control room where I keep an eye
on the technical side of the programme, answer emails, feed Bob
listener comments and dedications, do the programme’s social media
posts and so on. The show flies by, fuelled by some delicious banana
bread brought in by Sara Cox who’s on air next, and that means that
Music City is ahead of us!
Sunday November 11th
Thursday November 8th
The Bob Harris Country week generally starts on a Friday, when I
send Bob an update on the week’s new releases, chart positions and
general country music news so he can make a start on putting the
show together for the following week. The brief for the programme is
to provide a weekly snapshot of country music in all its forms, and so
over the course of each month you’ll find modern chart country rubbing
up against Americana, bluegrass, country rock, Hank Williams, Patsy
Cline, Willie Nelson and of course our regular live music sessions. This
week, however, is our CMA Award preview show and so it’s an hour of
And off to the airport on our way to the CMAs. BA’s direct flight to
Nashville means that you’re almost certain to bump into somebody
you know, and it’s no different this time round as the departure gate is
clogged up with the likes of Old Dominion, Eric Paslay, Otis Gibbs and
James Blunt. Sensing exciting news we bustle over to the latter, only
to find that he’s going to Music City on a writing trip and not to make a
surprise appearance on the award show. Oh well...
Nine hours later, and the madness has begun. I’ve been visiting
Nashville two or three times a year since the early 90s which means
that I know a lot of people here and therefore there’s a lot to pack in
every time I arrive. My phone has been going non-stop since we landed
and I’m already struggling to fit everything - and everybody - in. First
up for Bob & I is a quick drink with Scott Borchetta, the head of Big
Machine of course, and famously the Man Who Discovered Taylor Swift.
I myself am The Man
Who Sat Next To
Taylor On The London Underground last year, which is not such a good
headline but does at least get a laugh.
Anyway we swap a few war stories and I leave Bob with Scott while
I head over to the Exit/In to see a four act bill headlined by Lindsay
Ell over Clare Dunn, Kassi Ashton and the Sisterhood Band, who are
Rod Stewart’s daughter Ruby, and Alyssa Bonagera whose parents
are Baillie & The Boys. The Exit/In itself is a venerable old Nashville
landmark of course, having opened at the beginning of the Outlaw era
and its latest makeover is more rock club than country venue. I hang
with Cassadee Pope to watch the bands before she beetles up on
stage to end the night with a mass singalong of “With A Little Help From
My Friends” and I go to bed, clutching the bottles of wine Lindsay has
kindly given me to help me through the week. It seems to be 4 in the
morning UK time. How did that happen?
Monday November 12th
The first of two days of sessions for “Bob Harris Country”, and today is
- by luck rather than judgement - a C2C day with four of the main stage
acts coming in: Chase Rice, Brett Eldredge, Dustin Lynch and Drake
White. We record the sessions - and pretty much everything else we
do in Nashville - at Audio Productions on Music Row, a splendid facility
14 cmp - DECEMBER 2018
DECEMBER 2018 - cmp
15
Page 14
60 Obituaries
RANDALL KING had a cult following with only one ep release behind him.
this year’s full length album sees him become a major player on the texas
scene. by ALEX ROSSI
Reviews
30 Album Reviews
49 Live Review
D
espite only having released one
EP and one full-length album
Randall King seems to have
been around for years. Maybe
it’s that his sound is so steeped in the
West Texas Plains from which he hails,
maybe because the tradition runs deep
in the singer raised on a diet of Keith
Whitley, George Strait, Randy Travis and
Alan Jackson, or maybe it’s just that real
heartfelt country music is timeless.
Just one listen to one of the best songs
this year, Mirror Mirror, from King’s
eponymous debut, and it’s immediately
obvious that any of his heroes would
have been delighted to wrap their tonsils
around it. The song (also a single and
video) is both instant and classic, and the
singer scoffs at the suggestion that it’s
too country for country radio. “You never
know, man. If that song blows up it could
be on national radio.”
Recalling writing it, King adds, “You
know, its really funny, I wrote that song
with a couple of friends of mine back in
Texas, and I hadn’t worked it up with a
full band at all, it was still kinda getting
polished. I loved, loved, the song, and I
didn’t really think it would work. It’s that
old-school country lower key, and my
manager… we opened for Cody Johnson
up north… and my manager was there
and he goes, ‘Hey man, i think you should
start working Mirror Mirror into your set.
Your set’s missing it.’ So we worked it up,
and we were playing it probably for about
eight months before the record even
came out and that is the one song that
wasn’t even recorded anywhere and we
had fans singing it every night.”
Another standout track from King’s
album is Reasons To Quit which is about
cherishing and holding on to love. King
describes it as, “Very Randy Travis,”
and the song epitomises everything
that’s great about country music in one
package.
20 cmp - DECEMBER 2018
King continues, “When I produced that
song on the record I wanted to take it
up, so we did some bluegrass stuff to it.
there’s some Dobro on it, and I love that
song. I wrote that song with Bobby Terry
who played all the steel parts and about
seventy percent of all the guitar parts on
my record. We wrote that song and he
played every single instrument on that
track. It’s an incredible song but I didn’t
think it really meant as much to me as it
did until my grandmother called me and
said, ‘I love that song’ and then I realised
that basically that my grandmother was
the character in the song. We lost my
pawpaw a year and a half ago and they
were married for 65 years. So after 65
years of marriage that’s a lot of love,
that’s a lot of little things that connect
and make that relationship special. She
was still doing things on her everyday
routine as if my grandpa was still there.”
Randall King’s star is rising pretty
quickly. With only an EP behind him
he began playing live and built up
something of a cult following. “We
toured for two years on five songs,” he
laughs, “and with those five songs I was
able to get several things. I was able to
get my management, my booking agency,
and we built a pretty decent fan-base
just off the EP for two years. It’s jumped
up a lot and it’s been three, three and a
half years, and it’s not a bad boat, man.
There’s still a lot of work to do and
there’s still a lot of fans to gain but we’ve
been putting in the work and it’s starting
to show.”
King is quick to credit ‘his team’ in
getting him to where he is today, and
indeed, his notoriety on the Texas scene
is impressive after so few releases. “I
have an incredible team behind me.
From my management company to
my booking agent, we attack certain
markets via radio play and they would
put me in the best positions as far as
RANDALL
K Work I Ethic N G
DECEMBER 2018 - cmp
Regulars
4 News
8 Tour Guide
23 The David Allan Page
29 Corner Of Music Row
59 Americana Roundup
21
Page 20
Jake Brown with Josh Kear
Nashville-based author Jake Brown takes us behind the scenes of the Music row hit machine in his
latest book which features the stories behind 400 songs, 300 of them number one hits.
He speaks to DUNCAN WARWICK
I
t’s all about the song. Three chords and
the truth. These are phrases frequently
cited when trying to define country music
and if you think that the people behind
the scenes penning the hits are the unsung
heroes of country music, or if you’re a wannabe
songwriter felling the irresistible tug of Music
City and need a little advice from those who
have been there and done it, or even if you’d
just like to hear the stories behind some of the
biggest songs in recent memory, then a new
book by Jake Brown, Nashville Songwriter Vol.II,
offers all of that and more.
As the title implies, this is the second volume
from the busy Nashville-based author who had
previously put the likes of Bill Anderson and
Tom T. Hall in the spotlight with 2014’s Volume
One. This time around the songwriters featured
tend to have come to prominence in the last
decade and among the artists for whom they’ve
supplied songs are country’s biggest hit-makers
such as Carrie Underwood, Little Big Town,
Luke Bryan, Kacey Musgraves, Kenny Chesney,
Miranda Lambert, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw and
Cole Swindell. In all there are interviews with
35 of Music Row’s top songwriters covering 300
chart-toppers.
Explaining the idea behind the book which
gets behind the songs, author Brown, for whom
this marks his 45th published book in 17 years
says, “There’s been a lot of biographies on
country music but there’s been no book series
that profiles the stories behind, not only the
24 cmp - DECEMBER 2018
songs which are popular in country music,
but along with that the songwriters… and
they’re the unsung heroes of country music.
Percentage-wise it’s changing now because
more writers are getting in the writing room
with these people, but really for decades, and
unique for country music, most of the hits
you hear are not written by the artists who
made them famous. They’re written by these
songwriters. I wanted to create, if possible,
the first really thorough anthology series that
told the stories behind these men and women’s
stories. How they got to Nashville? Did they
come here to be stars? Did the come here to be
songwriters?
“The first book came out in 2014, and it
had 19 profiles in there. This one has 35. The
idea was to really try to get also as current - it
took me four years because I write a lot of
other books at the same time - this one I was
constantly interviewing new songwriters but
also constantly catching up with ones I already
talked to because they kept having number
ones. The idea was to get to 300. That was the
number I set along with my publisher. There are
closer to 400 in the book but 300 are number
ones.
“Another facet of country music that’s unique
is that Country has two Number One charts - US
Country Airplay and Hot 100 Country Songs.
The demand and the amount of hits they are
under pressure to turn out at any given time is
huge.”
DECEMBER 2018 - cmp
25
Page 24
JOSH
TURNER
Charts
A Higher Power
64 Americana & UK Country Charts
65 Billboard Country Charts
Courtesy of Billboard Inc.
T
BY DUNCAN WARWICK
here’s nothing better than God-given
talent. Josh Turner is certainly one of
the recipients of such a gift. Even his
speaking voice rumbles low and hints at
his powerful baritone. It’s a voice that made one
heck of an entrance with his debut single Long
Black Train in 2003 and saw him nominated for
the Horizon Award and song Of The Year at the
following year’s CMA Awards.It didn’t win but It
did clear up at the Inspirational Country Music
Awards. His faith has always been important to
Josh Turner and with his latest release he is giving
a little back with a full-blown tribute to the man
upstairs.
Called I Serve A Savior and featuring new songs
alongside traditional hymns and songs of faith it is
the record we’ve always known Turner had in him,
and one that he’s probably always wanted to make.
“Yeah, it is,” confirms the deep voice at the other
end of the phone.
“I do want to clarify one thing. A lot of people ask
me or have asked me why did it take so long for
me to make this record, and the honest answer is I
feel like God has told me to be a country singer in
my life and so up until this point my priority has
been to establish myself as that and I feel like I’ve
done that. So coming off the heels of Deep South,
debuting at number one on the album chart and
then Hometown Girl going to number one on the
singles chart. I didn’t real have any big plans for
2018 outside of touring, so when this opportunity
came I just felt like it was God’s time. I just felt like
it was the right time to go after this. I’m glad I did.
It was a lot of fun and I love the way this record has
50 cmp - DECEMBER 2018
come together. My fans are very pleased.”
Turner’s releases have often included a song of
faith and this release has been inevitable at some
point in the eyes of his fans. “I’ve tried, on every
record of mine just to show a heart. Not every
record has had a Gospel song or a faith song on it
but most of them have. That’s the most important
thing to me in my life ad I feel that that’s the most
important message that I can get out there to
people, that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and he
conquered the grave, and he’s gonna come back
one day, so out goal is to live for him, and serve
him, and work with him.”
I Serve A Savior is Turner’s seventh studio album
and features appearances by bluegrasser Bobby
Osborne (Osborne Brothers), Christian singer
Sonya Isaacs, and Tunrer’s own family. There are
also new live recordings of Turner favourites Long
Black Train and Me And God alongside traditional
hymns and new songs. Explaining the thought
process behind choosing the songs Turner says,
“Well, when it came time to make a Gospel record,
‘Gospel’ can mean a lot of different things to a lot
of different people, and I wanted to come at this
record from a lot of different perspectives. So the
song choice just came from a variety of sources,
so we have the standard hymns like Amazing
Grace and Great Is Your Faithfulness and that kind
of stuff, we also have original songs on here, we
have covers of Hank Williams’ I Saw The Light and
obviously I did new versions of Long Black Train
and Me And God, and I even did Swing Low Sweet
Chariot. I feel like there’s a lot of variety on this
record.”
DECEMBER 2018 - cmp
51
Page 50