Country music has always been about as close to R&B as you can possibly get. We're storytellers.
Growing up with country, R&B, gospel, and classical music from my grandmother and pop, Tuskegee was the perfect melting pot for my influences as a writer.
My earliest memories of country music are the Grand Ole Opry.
I am a country boy and proud of it.
By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.
Country is bringing in a little rock element... a little '80s element. Melody is king now. But its just in the music, its not so much in the songwriting, which is still very basic to the storytelling aspect of it.
It's quite interesting that in my growing up I had several influences. We had gospel music on campus. R&B music was, of course, the community, and radio was country music. So I can kind of see where all the influences came from.
