Always keeping it real.
Ward Davis appeared on the Ten Year Town podcast this week, where he of course talked about his early days in the industry, and how he got to know his friend Cody Jinks, who is easily one of the most talented and successful independent artists in the game.
Over the past decade, few artists have produced the kind of catalog that Cody Jinks has, both in quality and quantity. Since the release of his critically-acclaimed Adobe Sessions in 2015, Cody has operated a steady clip of nearly an album a year, following it up with I’m Not The Devil in 2016, 2018’s Lifers, two albums in 2019, a couple live and/or unplugged projects, a Lefty Frizzell cover album and a few more studio albums… it’s a catalog that I’d put up against anybody in country music over the past 10 years.
He plays sold-out shows all over the country, has multiple Gold and Platinum certifications to his name, and he doesn’t all without the backing of a huge record label… impressive doesn’t even begin to describe it. That takes more hard work and tenacity than you can even imagine.
Ward has been an integral part in Jinks’ career too, helping him pen some of his biggest songs in “I’m Not the Devil,” “Same Kind of Crazy as Me,” as well as one of my personal favorites, “Colorado.”
Davis says that song came from a very real place:
“Cody and I wrote a song called ‘Colorado,’ which is essentially a song abut me and my girl’s mom, about how we used to go to Colorado on vacation. The song is like, ‘Don’t think that I don’t think about Colorado,’ because it was a good time in our marriage.
But we would go to this town called Marble, Colorado. The line fell out of me, and I said, ‘I look back to when we carved our names in Marble on the aspen by the cabin where we stayed.’
Because I don’t know if you’ve ever been out to Colorado, but people carve their initials in the aspens and when it scars it swells out and it’s real cool and kind of graffiti.”
But because of how Nashville operates, Davis thought they couldn’t use the actual name of the town, though Jinks was not on board with that at all. He wanted to keep it authentic to Davis’ real life experience:
“And I said, ‘Yeah, but we can’t say Marble, because if I say I looked back and carved my name in Marble, no one’s gonna know what that means.’ He goes,’ Where did it happen?’ I said, ‘Marble.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s f****** Marble.'”
Davis explained that he learned quickly when he got to Nashville that you’re supposed to “dumb it down” for the listeners in terms of not giving them too much to think about if you want to have success on the radio, though that was the last thing Jinks was worried about.
He found a kindred spirit in Jinks in how they approached the art of songwriting and keeping integrity in the music:
“But I guess my point in that is, I learned in Nashville that we need to dumb it down. Make sure that these people don’t have to think about what you’re saying.
My god, the last thing we want somebody to do is lean into the radio and wonder what the hell the guy’s talking about and have to give it a minute. And here was this other guy going, ‘No, that’s not what we’re doing here, sir. We’re songwriters. We’re telling the truth.'”
Davis is know for keeping it real and speaking his mind, and I think it’s clear why he and Jinks work so well together, aside from the fact that they’re both extremely talented musicians.
Most of us know that the watered down music Nashville wants on the radio is far from the best country has to offer, and thanks to guys like Ward and Cody, that spirit of country music is kept alive and well with their incredible music.
God bless ’em for it, too… here’s the clip:
@tenyeartown Ward Davis on telling the truth in songwriting #countrymusic #tenyeartown #songwriting ♬ original sound – Ten Year Town Podcast
The full podcast is available below.
If you’ve never heard this one before, you’re missing out…
“Colorado”
