Tim McGraw's 2012 CD, Emotional Traffic. Photo courtesy of Webster & Associates.

After a court ruled in November that Tim McGraw had fulfilled his contract with Curb Records, his final album for the label, Emotional Traffic, is set for release next week on January 24. The record that Tim calls one of his ‘best ever’ is a tight collection of 12 songs that brings a close to one of the most successful Music Row partnerships of the last two decades.

The album’s lead single, the multi-week No. 1 hit “Felt Good On My Lips,” serves as a solid representation of Emotional Traffic’s overall sound. The polished work of Tim’s longtime Producer Byron Gallimore (Martina McBride, Faith Hill) is heard in the song’s crisp mix and pop-laden structure. Driven by a melodic bass line and a crunchy, sing-along chorus, Tim lightheartedly sings, I want to go crazy with you over a hook more suited for a dance floor than a bar stool. Much of the record makes a move to combine this modern, adult-contemporary feel with subtle country twang. Album-opener “Halo” works to achieve this by layering mid-tempo, ringing guitars underneath the lower range of Tim’s smooth drawl before breaking into a powerful chorus.

“I Will Not Fall Down” (written by Tim, Martina McBride, Brad Warren and Brett Warren) follows a similar path. Palm-muted guitar chords work methodically through a verse with the lines, I should probably just go out quietly / But I still got something left to say, before a dramatic chorus with lyrics that speak of thriving in someone’s love and gaining the strength to carry on in the face of adversity. While songs like these illustrate Tim’s mainstream appeal, he really is at his best in more traditional surroundings.

Possibly the album’s best song, “Touchdown Jesus” is a fresh description of divine intervention. With a similar feel to 2009’s No. 1 hit “Southern Voice,” Tim sings, I raised my hands above my head and said ‘Touchdown Jesus’, when witnessing the miracles made by recovering addicts and those who are sick. Continue Reading

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Tim McGraw photo courtesy of Webster & Associates.

Curb Records has released Tim McGraw’s “The One That Got Away” as the fourth of five songs being released ahead of Tim’s Emotional Traffic album, which hits shelves January 24. The single is available on iTunes.

Emotional Traffic will include 12 new songs and is the first new music from Tim since 2009’s Southern Voice. The album includes Tim’s current single, “”Better Than I Used To Be,” and “Felt Good On My Lips,” which spent three weeks at No. 1 and set a new industry milestone. With a total of 69 weeks at No.1 over the course of 32 songs, Tim has the most weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Country songs chart since the chart was established on the Nielson BDS system in January of 1990. Continue Reading

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Taylor Swift photo courtesy of Big Machine Records.

Taylor Swift couldn’t ask for much better timing. As she heads into the last week of promotion for her new album, Speak Now, she was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year Sunday night during the Nashville Songwriters Association International’s annual songwriter awards at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel.

Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin took Song of the Year for penning the emotional Miranda Lambert hit “The House That Built Me,” and Chris DuBois earned Songwriter of the Year for his work as an author of Craig Morgan’s “This Ain’t Nothin’” and the Brad Paisley singles “Then” and “Welcome To The Future.”

The awards were part of a formal evening that saw four new members added to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and had 11 titles recognized by the songwriting community as the cream of the crop: Songs I Wish I’d Written. That list included “Need You Now,” “White Liar,” “Big Green Tractor” and Taylor’s “You Belong With Me.”

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Miranda Lambert at the No. 1 party for her song, "The House That Built Me," on Tuesday, August 3, 2010, in Nashville.

“The House That Built Me” touched a lot of people during its four-week stay at No. 1 this year. A bunch of people who were responsible for it — particularly Miranda Lambert and the song’s writers, Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin — were honored for the accomplishment during a No. 1 party Tuesday at the swanky Nashville restaurant Sambuca.

Miranda’s fiancee, Blake Shelton, was there with his producer, Scott Hendricks — fitting because they relinquished the song to Miranda after she heard the demo while riding home from the airport with Blake.

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Trace Adkins (l) and Blake Shelton rehearse on Friday, April 16, 2010 for the 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. Photo courtesy of the Academy of Country Music.

From the minute Tim McGraw and Faith Hill announced plans for their multi-artist flood-relief concert Nashville Rising, the event looked like the kind of evening ripe for surprises. And it was.

Even after Brooks & Dunn were forced to cancel because of Ronnie Dunn’s throat problems, a few unannounced stars made their way Tuesday to Music City’s Bridgestone Arena, one of numerous downtown facilities that took in water during the early-May flood. Trace Adkins popped onstage to join Blake Shelton on “Hillbilly Bone,” according to USA Today. And Sandra Bullock — who worked with Tim on the movie The Blind Side — took the spotlight and comically picked out the opening chords from Deep Purple’s classic-rock standard “Smoke On The Water.” Then she got serious.

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Tim McGraw photo courtesy of timmcgraw.com.

Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum are quite the dynamic duo on the spring concert circuit, and both of them check in from New Orleans with host Nan Kelley on this weekend’s edition of GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown.

The Southern Voice Tour teams one of country’s veteran solo acts with a band that’s quickly become one of the genre’s new sales pillars. Tim can reach back as far as 1994 to put together a hit-filled set, and several of his tours — particularly those with wife Faith Hill — have set country sales marks. Lady A, which released its second album less than three months ago, is soaking up as much as it can while sharing the road with Tim.

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Tim McGraw photo courtesy of timmcgraw.com.

It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what constitutes the perfect Tim McGraw song. Or should it?

His career hit, “Live Like You Were Dying,” made a sweeping statement about life. “Indian Outlaw” and “I Like It, I Love It” were lighthearted ditties. “Back When” revolved around wordplay. “Just To See You Smile” and “I Need You,” a duet with wife Faith Hill, were love songs. “Southern Voice” is essentially a laundry list of ideas built around a central theme.

OK. Maybe it isn’t so easy to figure out the perfect Tim McGraw song. As it turns out, Tim can’t really put his finger on what works best for him, either.

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Brad Paisley on the set of "Welcome To The Future". Photo courtesy of Sony Music Nashville.

As a kid growing up in Altoona, Iowa — a very white suburb of Des Moines, I had almost no firsthand exposure to the racial divide that newspapers and the TV news regularly referenced in the 1970s.

Until I began working in Des Moines at the age of 16, the main way I learned about the issue was through Stevie Wonder albums. In songs such as “Living For The City,” “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” and “Cash In Your Face,” Stevie described the unfairness of being denied work or shelter because of an arbitrary physical trait — skin color — and I got an education through music that was not present on the street where I lived.

Tuesday was the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a Caucasian man. The date went by with little fanfare, though the results of her noble revolution can now be seen in country music, where she’s referenced in not just one, but two hits from the last six months: Brad Paisley’s “Welcome To The Future” and Tim McGraw’s “Southern Voice.”

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Tim McGraw photo by Danny Clinch, courtesy of Curb Records.

There are five Southern voices in the home of Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and it looks like that’s the limit. Tim, who occupies the cover of the newest edition of People magazine, originally had more kids in mind, but with three girls already in the family, there’s not much thought of expansion.

“We talked about it once,” he says in the story. “We even have names for boys. I would love to have a boy also, but if we start again now, we’re going to be old when they’re gone. We started out wanting five [kids], and life just…got busy.”

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On Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Brad Paisley performed for the President, First Lady and family, members of Congress and White House staff in the historic East Room of the White House. Photo credit Ben Enos.

Tuesday is Election Day in many parts of the U.S., and the week is a monumental anniversary as well: Barack Obama was voted the nation’s first African-American president on Nov. 4, 2008.

That same date marked the release of Brad Paisley’s Play album, and he couldn’t have created better timing if he’d planned it. He was in New York to promote the CD the day the nation went to the polls, and he witnessed hysterical celebration in Times Square. That helped inspire his song “Welcome To The Future,” which hit No. 1 this anniversary week in Country Aircheck.

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