Sad country songs make me so dang happy.
On Friday, legendary country duo Brooks & Dunn released their collaborative album Reboot II, which is a continuation of their 2019 Reboot record, which featured artists like Luke Combs, Kacey Musgraves, Cody Johnson and more.
This time around, there’s an entirely new crop of young country stars on the tracklist, including Lainey Wilson, Megan Moroney, Hardy, Morgan Wallen and many more.
In a conversation with Kelleigh Bannen on Today’s Country Radio, Kix says this installment of Reboot is different in that they really turned everybody loose. Some of them brought their own bands and producers, and picked whatever studio they wanted to use.
“Ronnie can tell you, it’s just turning everybody loose. Bring your own bands if you want. Bring your own producer if you want whatever studio you want to work in. We got a great producer and a band.
If you don’t want to deal with that, you can use our stuff and we will be there, after that pick a song and do it however you want.”
It’s really cool to see them bringing in younger artists to work on a special project like this, and a testament to the kinds of people they are to give them an opportunity to sing some of their most iconic songs with them.
As Kix explained, the artists had a ton of freedom to change the songs and record exactly how they wanted to, to really personalize it and add their own flavor to it. And one of my favorites, of course, is Riley Green’s rendition of Brooks & Dunn’s heartbreaker, “She Used to Be Mine.”
Of course, the song was written by Ronnie Dunn and included as the third single from their 1993 second studio album, Hard Workin’ Man. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) chart, and became their fifth #1 hit, and has since been certified Gold by the RIAA (meaning it has moved over 500,000 units since its initial release).
Riley says “She Used to Be Mine” is one of his “favorite songs,” adding how exciting it was to work with such a legendary country duo:
“I got to choose a song that was really one of my favorite songs, ‘She Used to Be Mine.’ and that they let me kind of make it my own, and run with it is a pretty exciting thing, and I”m excited for everybody to hear it.
In terms of the production, it’s fairly similar to the original in terms of the simplicity, though there is some added steel guitar that’s much more prominent than what’s on the original, and it really adds such a beautiful, sorrowful element that makes the song that much more heartbreaking.
Riley is so good at those types of songs and always leans into the simple, classic country sound, and I’m so glad he chose this song for this version of Reboot, because it wasn’t featured on the first installment of this project and is such a gorgeous song.
He simply doesn’t miss, and I think everything about this version works… from the pairing of Riley, Ronnie and Kix with their musical styles, to the perfect song choice, it’s easily one of the best on the tracklist. I’m going to have his version of “She Used to Be Mine” for the foreseeable future… do yourself a favor and check it out:
“She Used to Be Mine”
The original:
