It’s here.
Riley Green released his new album That’s Just Me, which features a pretty lengthy 19-song tracklist and features collaborations with Hannah McFarland, Jake Worthington, Alabama’s Randy Owen and my personal favorites, Brooks & Dunn.
Riley’s career has blown up over the last several years, and while all artists evolve, he hasn’t changed who he is fundamentally as an artist. Fans can always count on him to deliver really quality songs with beautiful lyrics and great production, and that’s what he delivered here. Riley sat down for an interview with sports personality Pat McAfee for Spotify a couple weeks ago, and he reflected on his success thus far and what his strategy was for this next record.
Of course, the challenge is always to stay true to who you are as an artist, while also keeping the music fresh and exciting for fans. Riley has always been a rare mainstream artist who sticks to that decidedly country sound. And even with his massive success, he tries to always include songs about his life in “small town Alabama” and things like that, which he’s written about since the beginning:
“Every year that things are going well and it grows and things get bigger, I always tend to make sure I find a way to write from that same place that got me here. Which is just small town Alabama where I grew up.
So I always try to go home and write, at least four or five songs that are going to be on every record from that mindset of just how I grew up and my family values, like I said, things I wrote about from the beginning.”
“Red Dirt Road” is a Brooks & Dunn classic, released in 2003 as the first single and title track from their album of the same name. It became their eighteenth number one hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, and also became a minor crossover hit, becoming a Top 25 single on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Riley wrote it with Dallas Davidson, and it finds him lamenting the fact that all of the fields and woods he used to hang out in are getting turned into gas stations and Dairy Queens:
“Dairy Queen was me and Daddy’s duck field
Sure was a whole lotta time and birds killed
Boy, I wish I could go on back and feel a twelve-gauge kick again
Heard they’re ’bout to build a brand new Kwik Sack
Where that old beat-up red hay barn’s sat
Boy, I wish I could close the gate where all that asphalt ends”
It begs the question… what will happen to this kind of lifestyle when “they pave all them red-dirt roads”:
“Where me and Daddy split that six-pack
The first beer I’d love to have back
Where I took that curve too fast
Put that Ford in that creek
And where I finally found that church pew
Where I walked a line in work boots
The love-of-my-life green-eyed girl
She climbed up in that bench seat
And where the hell is a good ol’ boy gonna go
When they pave all them red dirt roads?”
Brooks & Dunn come in at the last verse, singing the chorus from “Red Dirt Road” before closing it out with Riley by saying they “hope they never pave those red dirt roads”:
“It’s where I drank my first beer
Where I found Jesus
Where I wrecked my first car
Tore it all to pieces
(And found the path to heaven)
Is full of sinners and believers
(Learnin’ happiness on Earth)
Ain’t just for high achievers
Oh, I’ve learned
(And it’s what I’ve come to know)
Lord, I hope they never pave those red dirt roads”
It’s the kind of subject matter I think a ton of people will relate to, and Riley made it so rich and layered by adding the reference to Brooks & Dunn’s hit. Of course, getting them to sing on it just takes the song to the next level.
I absolutely love the way they structured it in terms of where Brooks & Dunn come in, and for me, this is an easy standout on a really great album.
Do yourself a favor and check it out:
“Pave All Them Dirt Roads (feat. Brooks & Dunn)”
“Red Dirt Road”
That’s Just Me Tracklist
- “My Way”
- “That’s Just Me”
- “Don’t Come Any Closer”
- “Go Again” (feat. Hannah McFarland)
- “Imagine That”
- “Got That From You”
- “Bartender In Destin”
- “Beach Happy”
- “Think As You Drunk”
- “Well Well Whiskey” (feat. Jake Worthington)
- “P.O.S.”
- “Runs in the Family”
- “Pave All Them Dirt Roads” (feat. Brooks & Dunn)
- “Lookout Mountain” (feat. Randy Owen)
- “Seven Second Ride
- “Radio Road”
- “Ol’ Stray Dog”
- “More of a Man Than Me”
- “Ten Pairs of Boots”
