Billy Currington’s Summer Forever
Billy Currington loves warm weather. When winter comes around, you’ll find Billy in Hawaii. So it’s appropriate that Billy titled his latest album “Summer Forever,” because if anyone lives that life, it’s Billy.
But actually the album title comes from the last song on the record. Billy explained to Country Countdown USA’s Lon Helton how that song ended up as the album title: “I was getting calls from the label saying, ‘We need the title today.’ So I looked through the songs, and my eyes went straight to the last song, Summer Forever, and it’s not like a beach album theme, but it’s still a summery feeling album, a positive vibe album. And I may have thought about that as I put the album together. I always feel that I want to leave people with a happy feeling. I love singing positive happy ones, and this album’s filled with them, so that’s hopefully the feeling I’ll leave you with.”
The song “Summer Forever” is written in part by a few familiar names: Cole Swindell, and Brian Kelley & Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line. So Lon asked Billy how a song by those writers ended up in his hands: “The other writer on that song is Jesse Frasure, and he called me up and said, ‘These guys aren’t recording this song we wrote together because they’re done with their album, but I really love this song, so I want to send it to you first.” So he sent me the song, and I fell in love instantly. Great title, great feel, great everything!”
A couple weeks ago, Billy invited the Nashville music media to a bar located on the Cumberland River, next to a marina, filled with boats and fishermen. It was in that environment that Billy played all of the songs on the album. We shot some pictures that day, and posted them with this story.
Another song with an eye-catching title is “Drinkin’ Town With a Football Problem.” Billy says he really identified with that one: “Yeah that song, when I first heard it, that’s my hometown right there. We didn’t even have a stop light. Very passionate for high school football on Friday nights. So I related to it so well. I thought every town has this. Every town has a high school, they’re passionate about Friday night, and every town is a drinking town. I don’t care where you live. People drink and go to games, so it just spoke to me, and that’s why that one got recorded, and I’m thinking that might be the next single.”
You worked on this album with producer Dann Huff. It’s your first time doing an entire album with Dann. He’s worked with a lot of big names, including Keith Urban. Did he push you harder on this album? “Dann pushes you for sure. There are so many times I’ll leave the studio thinking I sang it good, and he’ll call a couple days later and say, ‘Come on over and sing it again.’ I’ll go, ‘For what?’ ‘Just for fun! Come over and sing it again. You never know what we’re gonna get.’ That’s just how he works. He loves to get everything he can. He takes a long time to make a project, works and works until he feels he has a masterpiece, and I love that about him.”
Billy’s new album includes a rare duet called “Good Night.” In fact he’s been doing the song on the road this year: “It’s a song I did featuring Jessie James. We’ve done it in every show we’ve done so far. It’s about falling in love, and it’s the only collaboration that I did for this album. I’ve known Jessie since she was 17. We wrote together once, and always wanted to record together. She was 17 and came to one of my shows, stood in my autograph line, and said, ‘I’m Jessie James and I’m going to open shows for you one day.’ It went from there, she started coming to Nashville, and we wrote a few songs, so we have a long friendship and I think she has a great voice. I have made suggestions about her music, I think she would work well with my producer.” Jessie James is married to football star Eric Decker, and they’re expecting their second child.
Billy Currington’s album “Summer Forever” will be available on June 2nd.
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