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Biography |
Although success has carried country singer/songwriter Billy
Currington far away from his beloved hometown of Rincon,
Georgia, he remains the same simple man who was indelibly
shaped by his upbringing in this small Southern town with a
population of 4,376.
Currington burst onto the music scene in 2003 with his
eponymous debut CD, which contained the powerful Top 10 hit
“Walk a Little Straighter” and the fun Top 5 smash “I Got a
Feelin’,” which was accompanied by the memorable video
co-starring Baywatch beauty Gena Lee Nolin.
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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