14 minutes | Tuesday, 20 February 2024
'The CountryLine Songwriter Series', is where you'll hear from some of the most successful artists and songwriters working in Nashville today. Country music is all about storytelling and this is where you'll discover the stories from the people themselves of how they managed to find their way into such a competitive industry and rise to the top. What motivates and inspires them and what they've learnt along the way.
Scotty McCreery began singing as a child in Garner, North Carolina. School performances eventually gave way to local competitions, and McCreery won a singing contest in the nearby town of Clayton before trying out for American Idol as a 16-year-old. Auditioning with Josh Turner's "Your Man”, he made good use of his country twang and deep baritone vocals, prompting the judges to compare him to Randy Travis. McCreery passed the audition, became an audience favourite, and eventually won the competition in May 2011.
McCreery's coronation song was "I Love You This Big”, a country ballad that sold nearly 175,000 copies during its first week of release. The song also cracked the country charts at number 32, making it the highest-charting debut single in country music history, and helped stir up anticipation for his full-length album, which he recorded while preparing for American Idol’s summer tour. “Clear as Day”, appeared in the fall of 2011 from Mercury Nashville, debuting at number one on the Billboard Top 200 the week of its release. It went on to be one of the better-selling latter-day Idol-related records, earning a platinum certification and producing another hit single in "The Trouble with Girls”. The following year, McCreery released the seasonal “Christmas with Scotty McCreery”, in time for the 2012 holiday season.
In October 2013, he returned with his second official studio album, “See You Tonight”. Produced by Frank Rogers, the album moved McCreery into bright contemporary country-pop. It was a success, debuting at number one on Billboard's Country Albums chart and earning McCreery's the Breakthrough Artist Award at the 2013 American Country Awards. In 2015 he issued a new single, "Southern Belle”, and toured with Rascal Flatts.
In 2017, McCreery signed with Triple Tigers, a new imprint distributed by Sony Nashville. “Seasons Change”, his first album for his new label, arrived in 2018 and gave him three number one hits on Billboard's Country Airplay chart: "Five More Minutes”, "This Is It”, and "In Between”. In 2020, he released "You Time”, which went to number one on Billboard Country Airplay, setting up the 2021 release of its parent album “Same Truck”.
In 2022 Scotty McCreery performed at the C2C Festival and chatted with CountryLine’s Stuart Banford in Dublin.