When superstar Shania Twain heard Currington’s soulful Southern voice, she
knew she had found the perfect partner for the country duet “Party for Two,”
so Currington excitedly boarded a plane for Europe to work in the studio with
Twain and legendary producer Robert “Mutt” Lange. Currington and Twain
performed the song live on the 2004 Country Music Association Awards and
a special Good Morning America show from Nashville.
His musical success brought national media attention, including People
magazine and USA Today, which named Currington an “On the Verge” artist.
Soon the media began celebrating the bachelor’s other attributes as well:
Playgirl magazine featured a (clothed) Currington on its March 2005 cover
and Nashville Lifestyles magazine named him one of its “25 Most Beautiful
People.”
Despite the world traveling, magazine photo sessions and celebrity
encounters, Currington adamantly refuses to live life in the fast lane. “The
bigger and better is nice,” he says of the comforts success brings. “The
hotels are nice and visiting different countries is great. But I always try to
picture it at the end. When you are 80, what are you really going to want?
What’s really going to matter? It’s not a lot of materialistic things for me. It’s
just maybe a front porch, a couple of rocking chairs, a simple life.”
His music captures the lives of hard-working people who often live off the
beaten path. The only luxury they can afford perhaps is time, so they relish
the few moments they have off the clock, when their time is finally their
own. Sometimes it’s the thought of Saturday night that gets them through
an exhausting week, so when the weekend rolls around, it’s time to forget
their troubles and celebrate.
“I go to all of these small towns often and it seems like there isn’t much
there,” he says. “That’s how it was where I grew up. You walked the railroad
tracks or walked down to the store or sat in your backyard. It’s all a part of
the slow life. You aren’t battling 20 red lights and horns and sirens and
having to get from job to job.”
In his sophomore CD, Doin’ Somethin’ Right, Currington unveils a more
mature Southern sound of blues-tinged country in songs such as the debut
single, “Must Be Doin’ Somethin’ Right,” “Why, Why, Why,” “Whole Lot
More,” “Here I Am” and “She’s Got A Way With Me,” a duet with legendary
singer Michael McDonald. “I wanted to make sure it was country,” he says.
“After the Shania duet, people asked me, ‘Have you changed your direction?
Are you going more pop?’ I don’t want anybody to be confused about where
I am musically because in my heart I am the same.”
The same, perhaps, but also better. Since he recorded his first CD, he’s
spent four years on the road, performing five nights a week in clubs and
concert halls. The dedication to his craft has resulted in a voice that is bigger
and deeper and a performer who knows what works well with his audience
during his raucous 90-minute show. “With every song, you’ve got to picture
standing on that stage and singing to that audience,” he says. “All of these
songs I sang on the first record, I quickly learned which ones work and
which ones don’t work for a bar atmosphere or for a huge stadium. Before
making this album, I made myself picture every song live in front of a
crowd.”
Doin’ Somethin’ Right contains such crowd-pleasers as the up-tempo rocking
“She Knows What To Do With A Saturday Night” and “Hillbilly,” a romping,
three-chord country song that salutes the backwoods way of life. “It’s a part
of me,” he says. “It says, ‘I wanna be a hillbilly,’ not, ‘I am a hillbilly.’ I’ve
got so many songs to sing and things I want to say. It spans from love
songs to my hillbilly side.”
While he may sometimes be romantic, rebellious or reflective, he’s always
Southern, especially when he’s behind the microphone. You can almost hear
the molasses slowly dripping off every note. “Southern means down home –
fried chicken, my grandparents, my family and the way they raised me and
the way we carry ourselves through life. My music is based on the life that a
Southern boy has lived -- the way we do things. Music lives and breathes
down there. The gospel lives there, and the blues and the steel guitars and
the fiddles. They are definitely part of the Southern heritage.”
That love of all things Southern and country, especially the music, was
instilled in him by his mother and step-father, who played records by Kenny
Rogers, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and the Statler Brothers. “The first
album I ever got was Kenny Rogers, which my mom gave me for Christmas
when I was 10,” he says. “After that, I went out and bought every one of
them and played them all the time. Then she took me to a concert and I fell
in love with Kenny Rogers. He’s a guy who can sing it all and sell the song.”
To show his appreciation of Rogers’ music, Currington has included a cover
of “Lucille” on the new album. “I’ve always wanted to cut a waltz,” he says.
“And I just love the lyrics of the song, the whole feel of it; it’s such a great
story.”
Currington began writing songs as a teenager and began playing guitar at
age 17. “I still have my first guitar and the receipt for it,” he says. “I bought
it at a pawn shop in Savannah, Georgia, for about $120.”
While he was a high school junior, he attended church with a friend and was
overwhelmed by the church’s blend of gospel and country. When he
complimented the preacher on the music, the preacher invited him back to
sing the next Sunday. Blown away by Currington’s burgeoning talents as the
two spent more time together, the preacher personally drove Currington to
Nashville to audition for the Opryland USA theme park. Although he didn’t
get hired, the trip proved life changing because Currington suddenly knew
his destiny after graduation: he was going to move to Nashville and become
a country singer/songwriter.
And that’s what he did. He took a lucrative day job at a concrete company to
support himself while pursuing his musical dream. Unfortunately, the job
took six days a week, 16 hours a day, so it left little time for dreaming,
much less writing or singing. At the urging of songwriter friends, he quit his
job and took a part-time job as a personal trainer so that he could truly
focus on his music. As fate would have it, Currington met Gary Voorhies, a
client at the gym who also worked for a music publishing company. The two
got to know each other and Gary invited Currington to sing and play some
music for him. Not long after that meeting, Billy got a publishing deal.
From there, a Carson Chamberlain-produced demo eventually found its way
to Universal Music Group Nashville’s Co-Chairman Luke Lewis, who signed
him to Mercury Records because he was impressed by the Georgian’s singing
and songwriting.
Currington co-wrote four songs on Doin’ Somethin’ Right – “Why, Why,
Why,” “Here I Am,” “Whole Lot More” and “She’s Got A Way With Me,” which
he wrote with Michael McDonald at his Franklin home. “The Michael
McDonald experience has been my favorite yet,” Currington says. “Having
the opportunity to share whatever it was – the studio in his house where we
recorded the demo, the small room we wrote it in, the conversations on the
phone, the invitations to hang out together – all of those things are my
favorite experiences of this year.”
Although he seems to be a long way from Rincon, Georgia, Currington
regularly remembers his roots and the hard work it took to get him to
Nashville. “I think about that all the time,” he says. “I’ve never been to a
town where I didn’t see a concrete truck. I always remember doing that
work and am so thankful that I don’t do that anymore. I’m not above it, it’s
just not what I love. I love what I’m doing now. I am so thankful that I get
to do what I love.” |
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