Chris Young & Doobie Brothers

Chris Young is a traditional country singer.  There’s no doubt about it.  He reveres George Jones, Randy Travis, and Keith Whitley.  But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know or enjoy a little classic rock.  Chris is one of a dozen country stars who will appear on a tribute album with the Doobie Brothers.  This week, Chris co-hosted Country Countdown USA and spoke with Lon Helton about his experience jammin’ with rock legends:

“I got an email right after Sony decided to do a project with the Doobie Brothers, and I responded as fast as I could type, ‘Absolutely.’  I listened to a lot of different stuff when I was a kid.  Primarily country, but we branched out and loved everything from Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, and the Doobie Brothers.  Anything of any genre, we listened to it.  The cool thing about this is they’ve never re-recorded any of this stuff.  So I’m in the studio with (guitar player) Tom Johnston , and he goes, ‘I don’t remember how I played this.  We’ve been playing it live for so long live, I’ve adapted it and slowly changed it.  So I had to go back and listen to my own record to find out how to get it back into the pocket.'”

Back in February, Chris performed at a radio function with the band.  They also showed up at his Fan Club Party on June 5th in Nashville.  Chris told Lon that at least one family member was pretty excited: “It was about the only time I saw my dad gurm anybody. He was like, ‘I don’t care, I gotta meet them.’  Of all the stuff I’ve done, he was just losing his mind.”

Did they tell you that some of them were once in a country band?  A couple of them started a group called Southern Pacific in the late 80s, and had several hits on the radio: “Yeah they talked about that in the studio.  They told a couple stories and said they’ve got that connection.  In addition to having fans who now listen to country, but they also did a country band on the side.”

“One other funny story, we were walking the red carpet at the CMT Awards, and they told me afterwards, ‘That was cool where we walked down the line, and people interviewed us and took our picture.  We’ve never done one of those before!’  I thought that was wild, as long as they’ve been around, that they’ve never done a red carpet.” The Doobie Brothers Tribute album will be released later this year.

In addition to Chris Young, other performers include Brad Paisley, Sara Evans, Jerrod Niemann, The Zac Brown Band, and many more.

Tags: Chris Young

Category: Audio