Pop Music Notes

For about as long as there has been a pop chart and a country chart, well-written songs have found success on both. Whether it is Patsy Cline taking “Walking After Midnight” to number two on the US Country chart and number 12 on the Pop chart in 1957, or it is dueling versions of the same song by different artists (see “I Swear,” “I Can Love You Like That,” “How Do I Live,” “Back at One,” and of course “I Will Always Love You”), a great song is a great song no matter how much twang you sing it with. We probably should have seen an Adele cover coming from Nashville, but I did not expect to see THIS version:

When I saw that David Nail had recorded a version of “Someone Like You” and was releasing it on an EP, I was nervous. David is an amazing singer and is refreshing in the way he avoids a lot of the Country music clichés, but I didn’t know what his intentions were. Turns out that Nail uses the song to warm up before shows and only recorded the above video for acquaintances who wanted to revisit his powerful interpretation. A video lead to a posting on Vevo, which lead to fans demanding a studio version of the song. Fortunately, David’s record company MCA Nashville decided to play along, scheduling the song for an EP called 1979 that will be released on July 17th.

For those of you not familiar with David Nail, please believe me when I say he’s the real deal. He’s been at the music game for over a decade, but scored his first major hit in 2008 with “Red Light,” which went top 10 on the Country chart and even reached the middle region of the Billboard Hot 100. His biggest hit to date came last year with “Let It Rain,” which went to number one and cemented his status as one to watch. I saw him open for Lady Antebellum on their Need You Now tour in 2010, and he quickly won over an audience who primarily had no idea who he was. In fact, he was so good that he made a band on their first headlining tour look downright amateurish. The one thing I remembered about David Nail’s set is that he did not resort to a lot of covers like other acts do (including Lady Antebellum). He owned that audience simply by playing his own music and playing it well. Any success and respect this guy gets is well-deserved.