Come a long way from singing demo tapes.
Morgan Wallen has a pretty recognizable voice these days. He’s obviously one of the biggest names in country music (whether you actually consider him “country” or not), selling out stadiums and racking up #1 songs like Elon Musk racks up baby mamas.
The singer actually got his start on The Voice back in 2014, and released his debut album If I Know Me in 2017. The album went to #1 on the charts, and the lead sing “The Way I Talk” was a minor hit at the time, but Morgan didn’t really become a superstar until the release of his Dangerous: The Double Album in 2020.
So when Kid Rock got a demo of a song a few years ago, he was impressed by the voice – but didn’t recognize the future country superstar who was singing it.
Ol’ Bob Ritchie recently sat down with Bill Maher for an episode of his Club Random podcast, and as it turns out Maher is actually a pretty big fan of Kid Rock’s music (not so much his politics, but hey, you win some and you lose some).
During their conversation, Maher brought up Kid Rock’s song “Still Somethin'” from his 2022 album Bad Reputation:
“That evocation of that time in your life, the one about you’re in the second row, with your girl on your shoulders, all that stuff, that…”
Well as it turns out that song was actually written by Morgan Wallen and Mitchell Tenpenny, along with Kid Rock, Andy Albert and Jordan Schmidt. Rock wasn’t involved in the original writing of the song, but got sent a demo tape asking him to record it – and the demo was performed by a then-relatively unknown Morgan Wallen.
Kid Rock says that he didn’t recognize the voice on the demo, but was immediately impressed by Wallen’s vocals:
“This is before Morgan Wallen blew up. I remember somehow I got a demo of it, I can’t remember what, and I just couldn’t get over the voice on it.
I was like, ‘Who the fuck is singing this demo?’ It was Morgan Wallen.”
Bob says that he then reworked the song before recording it, but he’s since become good friends with Wallen. (Remember back in 2020 when Morgan was arrested at Kid Rock’s Nashville bar for breaking a glass?)
Obviously these days any artist would probably instantly recognize a demo that was being sung by Morgan Wallen. But back then, Morgan was still relatively unknown – though ironically, he had become a global superstar by the time Kid Rock recorded and released “Still Somethin'” in 2022.
Kid Rock also recently sat down with Glenn Beck and discussed some of his music, including his most popular song “Picture.” Glenn mentioned that Kid has worked with everyone throughout his career, regardless of political affiliation, and even mentioned Sheryl Crow, who he said “doesn’t necessarily jump to mind,” as someone who he would get along with.
Kid Rock immediately chimed in:
“We don’t talk a lot these days, come to think of it.”
I guess you can’t win ’em all.
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