Artists That Begin With O

James Otto

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:36:00 GMT

James Otto may be 100 percent country, but he’s also got a heart full of soul. On his third album, Shake What God Gave Ya, Nashville’s breakout star puts his God-given lung power to work on a set of songs that make even more determined use of the old-school R&B grit in his powerhouse voice. “I look at my sound as somewhere between Nashville and Memphis,” says Otto, setting the new record’s compass point firmly on the map.

Although Shake What God Gave Ya marks the first time he’s explored the country-soul sound so devotedly on record, it won’t come as any shock to anyone who heard his earlier smash, “Just Got Started Loving You.” Which is a category that should cover just about every country fan, since that tune was declared the No. 1 country single of 2008 by Billboard. When it came time to craft a full-length follow-up, Otto took that ringing vote of confidence as license to lean more heavily on those influences this time around. In other words, he just got started being soulful.

“With ‘Just Got Started Loving You,’ the beat and groove of that song could easily have been ‘I got sunshine on a cloudy day…’—that kind of thing,” he says, jubilantly launching into a verse of the Temptations’ classic oldie “My Girl.” “And the fact that that went over at radio was an eye-opener for me, because it really opened the door for me to be able to do a lot more of that on this album. I never would have expected that it would have gone over the way it did. But I’m really thankful that it did. And hopefully the same people that loved that song will get a lot out of this record.”

Otto doesn’t just have to have faith that the new material will go over with audiences. A good deal of it has been road-tested, particularly on the 2010 triple-header tour he’s undertaken with Toby Keith and Trace Adkins. “I approached writing a lot of these songs with what I really wanted for my live show,” he says. That arena-ready thinking bred barnburners like the opening track, “Are Ya With Me,” which emphasizes his Southern rock side, and the divine mandate of the title song, “Shake What God Gave Ya,” which Otto says “has turned out to be the best live song we have—better than any of the hits—because it gets people off their asses and out of their seats.”

That’s not to say that it’s strictly a party album. “Soldiers & Jesus” could be seen as arriving in the lineage of “In Color,” the touching tale of a veteran that Otto co-wrote with and for his friend Jamey Johnson, which earned them Song of the Year trophies at both the CMA and ACM Awards, as well as a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song.

“Soldiers & Jesus” is no rote patriotic anthem. As the grandson of a Korean War veteran, the son of a drill sergeant who was in the military for 23 years, and as a Navy vet himself, Otto feels an intensely personal connection with the song’s message… which, he stresses, is not a political one. “Being a guy who considers himself a Christian, I think this song addresses a subject that needs to be addressed. One of the lines is, ‘There’s a left side, a right side, and then there’s the truth.’ Regardless of the politics that can often divide our nation … This song basically just wants to lay it out as Christians see it—that there’s only two people that ever gave their lives for you, and it’s soldiers and Jesus.”

And then, landing somewhere between a sober ballad like that and the crowd-baiting rockers, are the album’s exercises in slinky, sexy soul. Take the leadoff single, “Groovy Little Summer Song,” escapist fare “in the tradition of Carolina shag songs”—by which he means the ‘60s “shag” genre of east coast beach tunes, though you could be forgiven for favoring the other interpretation.

If you liked “Just Got Started Loving You,” you should really love its sequel, “Sun Comes ‘Round Again.” When I introduce this song, I say, ‘This song here is for all of y’all out there who thought ‘Just Got Started Loving You’ was foreplay and wanted the loving to go on all night long.’”

And Otto arguably saves the best for last by ending the disc with a duet with a legend who was an obvious influence on the entire project, Ronnie Milsap. “He came in and just sang his butt off and told musical stories all day long,” Otto beams. “It definitely was one of the greatest moments I’ve spent in the business, because I got to sit with one of my heroes and hear him sing one of my songs. It was a raise-the-hair-on-your-arms moment.”

There’s a long and storied tradition of this soulful influence in country music—just not so much lately. Otto’s self-appointed task was to contemporize a hybrid style associated with heritage stars like Milsap and Conway Twitty and add some Southern-rock edge to the easygoing soul. In this, he had the strong support of Warner Music Nashville president and CEO John Esposito. And as a collaborator he had revered producer Paul Worley, who was responsible for the Dixie Chicks’ 10-times-platinum albums, the biggest hits by Martina McBride and Big & Rich, and most recently helmed the biggest-selling album of 2010, by Lady Antebellum.

“We went straight after it this time, man,” says Otto. “My goal on this album was to make a country-soul album. My band and I were playing more of that kind of thing live, and it was really working for us. ‘Just Got Started Loving You’ was a perfect example of a great country-soul song, and I told everybody involved with this record, ‘Look, I want to have a whole album full of that, where it all sounds like it belongs on the same record.’ Like Ray Charles did Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, going in to do a country record, we were going to come at that from the other side.”

Otto hails from the great Northwest, which hasn’t turned out a huge number of country stars, though it hasn’t been for lack of local interest. “Country music is actually really big up there. I know when people think of Washington state they think of Seattle, but the side of WA that I’m from, which is the high plains/desert side, is all straight-up agricultural.” Not that he isn’t equally proud of being a Nashvillian, which you might guess from his ability to pinpoint the date he made the move (“thirteen years ago, August 4”).

Otto was one of the cofounders of Nashville’s genre-bending Muzik Mafia, whose weekly club shows in the early and mid-‘00s were the springboard to stardom for pals like Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson. “I had been one of the original founding members of Muzik Mafia, from the very first show, and that was where I started thinking I might still get a shot at making music the way I wanted to make it,” he says. “It was very influential in my musical thinking, allowing me to be much more adventurous musically than any record label was going to let me be.” Anyone who attended those historic shows knew about Otto’s full range of influences. The most popular song in his set in those early days was perhaps the most R&B-inflected thing he’s ever written—“Good Thing’s Gone Bad,” which Otto never put on an album until now.

But there was little evidence he’d head in this direction on his first album, Days of Our Lives, which was released on Mercury Records back in 2004.

By 2008, Otto was with Warner Bros. Records. His sophomore album, Sunset Man—co-produced by John Rich and Otto with several tracks produced by Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus (Otto’s brother-in-law) and Otto—had a lighter feel. That change wasn’t just a cosmetic one. “When ‘Just Got Started Loving You’ came out, I think that people who knew the earlier stuff may have thought that it was not necessarily who I was. Actually, it was a good, honest reflection of where I was going.” Besides the stylistic shifts, “I was living a totally different personal life by that point. In love with and newly married to my wife Amy, I was in a much better, happier place; we’ve been married now for five years and welcomed our first child, Ava Katherine Otto, into the world on Aug. 24, 2010. The changes definitely represented where I was at the time, and continue to be where my music is pushing me these days.”

But whatever fraternity Otto falls into—whether it was Muzik Mafia in the mid-‘00s or a Toby-led tour now—it’s clear that he has a singular identity that doesn’t exactly jibe with anything any other leading light in country music is up to. And that’s all right with him. Where he soulfully leads, he believes others will follow.

“As much as there’s all these different fractures of country music these days—you have pop country, rock country, traditional country, alt-country, and all these things in between—I don’t know why country-soul couldn’t exist right alongside it all.” Shake What God Gave Ya is such a blast, spanning the spectrum from rump-shaking motivationals to pure romance, that even if Otto were country music’s sole soul man, that’d be genre enough.

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Jake Owen

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Jake Owen became a star so quickly that he didn’t have time to memorize any Country Music Rule Book – which made it that much easier to toss it out the window.

Guided by sheer musical instinct, a drive for self-improvement and a willingness to experiment, the singer-songwriter has crafted Barefoot Blue Jean Night as one of the most innovative and refreshing country collections of the year. The CD’s title tune is already exploding as the biggest hit of Owen’s career to date.

“I never wanted to be the guy that did everything the way you’re supposed to do it,” says the candid and outgoing music maker. “And that led me to make this record, which I think really represents who I am more than anything I've ever recorded. If nothing else happens after this, I can honestly say that I did the absolute best that I can do. I’ve never felt this good about music, or anything in my career, as I do right now.”

His buoyant optimism is justified. Barefoot Blue Jean Night brims with vocal self-confidence and a superbly chosen stack of songs. The pumping energy in such country rockers as “Anywhere with You,” “Apple Pie Moonshine,” “The One That Got Away” and “Nobody Feelin’ No Pain” contrasts dramatically with the feverish thumper “Wide Awake” or the crunchy, edgy and atmospheric “Alone with You.”

“Keepin’ it Country” is a Jake Owen statement of purpose. “Heaven” is a smiling, seductive come-on. On the other hand, there’s the touching, lovely and philosophical acoustic ballad “The Journey of Your Life.” The frothing power, cascading rhythm and head-to-the-sky vocal shout of “Settin’ the World on Fire” mark it as a blue-chip, blue-collar rocker. And what more can be said of “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” surely the most joyous Southern celebration on disc today?

All of these sounds mean a new beginning for the hit maker. Jake Owen has previously enjoyed major-league success with such performances as 2006’s “Startin’ with Me,” 2008’s “Don’t Think I Can’t Love You,” and 2009’s “Eight Second Ride.” His revival of “Life in a Northern Town” with Sugarland and Little Big Town in 2008 earned him Grammy and CMA Award nominations. Owen was named 2009’s Top New Male Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music. But nothing, he says, compares to the impact his new music is making.

“Everything is amazing right now. I have other artists, song publishers, promotion reps, people at other record labels coming up to me and saying, ‘Jake, I really like your new song. We’re pulling for you, dude.’ That validates everything I’ve ever done up to this point. Now, I have people cheering for me and that is an awesome feeling.”

In 2005, Jake went from performing in Florida bars to moving to Nashville and within months he had a Music Row song-publishing contract. Less than a year later, he was signed by RCA Records and was on the charts with his first two singles, “Yee Haw” and “Startin’ with Me.” He went from being a speck in a stadium crowd at a Kenny Chesney concert to opening shows for the superstar. Then Brad Paisley took him on the road as Owen scored his third hit, 2007’s “Something About a Woman.” In 2008, Owen opened shows for Sugarland and this year, Keith Urban asked Jake to be his touring partner on the Get Closer 2011 World tour.

“I would say I have had a pretty great life,” he admits. “As far as me struggling in Nashville, I can’t say that I did that. A lot of singer/songwriter’s come to town and play all the honky-tonks and bars, hoping to meet someone and worrying and struggling. Mine’s not that story.

“For a long time, I tried not to really tell my story, because I felt like everybody thought, ‘Look at this lucky kid.’ So I’ve always been a little hesitant to talk about that, even to be a little ashamed of it.

“Then I started thinking. This is my story. This is what I did so I should be proud, not ashamed. Yes, I feel like I was very, very fortunate but I am also extremely grateful that everything happened the way it did. I truly believe that everything always works out the way it is supposed to.”

There was a downside to his good fortune. Because of being so suddenly thrust into the spotlight on the road, Jake Owen never really got to know the Nashville country community. Because he wrote his own songs, he knew only a handful of the hundreds of gifted song craftspeople in Music City. So in making his third album, he addressed the missing parts of his “Nashville education.” Jake Owen had co-written nearly all the songs on his first two records. For his third, he reached out into a songwriting community he had never tapped.

“I searched out songs. I searched out songwriters. I got to pick songs from this amazing community of writers, and I’d never done that. Before, I’d written everything because I felt like that was expected of me. On this record, I wanted to include the incredibly talented writers in this town.”

He also set out to find a more personal sound. In search of a new musical direction, he initially teamed up with legendary producer Tony Brown, who is famed for his work with George Strait, Reba, Steve Earle, Vince Gill and dozens of other hit makers. Brown produced the first five songs that Owen chose for his album.

But Jake Owen still felt restless. Since he had kept Rodney Clawson’s co-written “Keepin’ it Country” for more than a year without recording it, the singer felt obligated to the songwriter. So he approached Clawson about producing the song. Clawson’s songwriting credits include George Strait’s “I Saw God Today,” Big & Rich’s “Lost in This Moment” and Jason Aldean’s hits “Hicktown,” “Amarillo Sky,” “Johnny Cash,” “Crazy Town” and “Why.” So Tony Brown gave Owen his blessing to continue experimenting with the sound of his record.

To the singer’s surprise, Clawson suggested bringing in Canada’s Joey Moi as a co-producer. Moi is noted for his work with the rock band Nickelback. This is his first experience with country music.

“Joey came to town with all these extra ideas,” Owen comments. “I’d always listened to people say what you’re supposed to do and not supposed to do on a country record. He blew my mind.

“Instantly, when I started to work with these guys, I felt, ‘Wow. They get it.’ They had the sound I’d been hearing in my head.” So after two CDs, a big ACM award and a string of radio successes, Jake Owen has come into his own.

He observes, “When you get a record deal, no one hands you a manual or an instruction booklet and tells you how you’re supposed to conduct your professional life. I was a kid straight out of college, thrown out on these massive stages. I really didn’t know anything. I had to find out who I am.”

His roots are fairly easy to describe. Jake Owen was raised in the coastal town of Vero Beach, FL. He and his fraternal twin Jarrod grew up in the sand and surf. Both boys attended Florida State. That’s where music became Jake Owen’s true focus. He suffered a severe shoulder injury while wake boarding. This ended his days on the university’s golf team. During his recuperation, his left arm was in a sling. Jake realized that even with his arm in a sling, he could hold a guitar so he started playing guitar and writing songs.

“This scar that I have on my shoulder reminds me about the one dark time in my life,” he recalls. “It took that accident to make me realize that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. What I was supposed to be doing, was something that fulfilled me. Music.”

After his recovery, Jake became a regular club entertainer. He quit college just shy of graduation to make his pilgrimage to Music City. Then he was catapulted into the country-music spotlight. Now comes the real work.

“If you want to get better at your craft, you have to push yourself, take risks and try something different,” he reflects. “In order to grow and not be complacent, you have to open your mind, expand your horizons and be grateful. That’s what this record represents for me.”

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Jamie O'Neal

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:27:00 GMT

Jamie O’Neal grew up with a microphone in her hand, singing in her family’s band and putting into practice what she learned studying music’s biggest legends at close range.

“From a young age,” she says, “I had a bird’s eye view as entertainers like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Crystal Gayle performed. I watched from the side of the stage at the way they connected with a crowd, and that’s what made me want to be a performer.”

Jamie’s lifelong zest for performing, her love of country music and her “Ferrari of a voice,” as one critic called it, have since made her one of the genre’s most respected artists.

The successes are well known to country fans. Jamie launched her career with back-to-back #1's- "There Is No Arizona" and "When I Think About Angels”—and followed with hits like “Shiver“, "Trying To Find Atlantis” and the #3 tribute to moms everywhere, "Somebody's Hero". Along the way, she has earned four Grammy nominations and a host of other awards and critical accolades.

Now, with the release of her first 1720 Entertainment single, "Like A Woman," Jamie shows that both her powerhouse vocal abilities and her knack for conveying real emotion are as strong as ever. A song filled with passion and insight, "Like A Woman" talks about reconnecting with the spark of love and romance that launches relationships.

"Sometimes in the day-to-day routine of children and errands," she says, "we lose touch with that basic need we all have to be recognized and appreciated as a woman. That feeling and that need is what this song is about. It’s something women everywhere would want to say to their husbands, and men like hearing the message as well. Both can relate to it and I like that in a song.”

"Like A Woman" is from Jamie's forthcoming 1720 debut, a project that is a testament to her perseverance after creative struggles with previous record labels had taken their toll.

"There was a time last year when due to artistic differences I left my record label and I thought, 'I'm just getting off the carousel,'" she says with the easy laugh of the survivor. "It's been such a roller coaster ride, with such dramatic highs and lows. But I write and sing with more passion than ever now because of everything I've been through."

In fact, it was songwriting that kept her moving forward. "I kept writing the songs I wanted to write about, who I was and what I wanted to talk about,” she says. “That's exciting for me, but ultimately I knew as an artist that if I didn't keep going and record more music, I would regret it, and I don't want to have any regrets."

Through good and bad, Jamie has poured herself into her art, creating a body of work that connects profoundly with fans who recognize in her a kindred spirit.

"When someone tells me, 'Your song got me through a really hard time,’" she says, "or when 'Somebody's Hero' prompts someone to say, 'It makes me think about my Mom,' who I had to put in a nursing home,’ I know exactly how important it is that I do what I do.”

Those connections have been important since those early days traveling the country with her parents. She lived in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, attending Beverly Hills High along with many known actors and singers, then singing backup for Kylie Minogue. It was Nashville, though, that set her solo career in motion. Producer Keith Stegall (Alan Jackson, Clay Walker) helped her land the record deal that led to the critically acclaimed Shiver and its first single, "Arizona," which placed her in the front ranks of female singers. She won the ACM's Top New Female Vocalist award and was named the Top New Country Artist by Billboard. Two of her four Grammy nominations came as a songwriter, for Best Country Song for "Arizona" and its chart-topping follow-up, "When I Think About Angels".

She toured with Reba McEntire, Kenny Chesney, Martina McBride, Alan Jackson and Toby Keith, and landed songs on the soundtracks of Bridget Jones's Diary and When We Were Soldiers, as well as on the ABC smash Desperate Housewives.

It is a measure of the respect she has earned that after Celine Dion was unable to sing “All By Myself” for Bridget Jones, the producers searched country music for its most powerful vocalist and chose Jamie. When Carrie Underwood won American Idol, a search for a top-flight duet partner led once again to Jamie.

The woman known for her powerhouse vocals is also one of the industry's most prolific and accomplished songwriters, writing for LeAnn Rimes, CeCe Winans and Martina McBride, who took Jamie's "How Far" to the upper reaches of the charts, as well as Idol alumnus Kristy Lee Cook and newcomer Star DeAzlan.

Jamie has been a frequent television presence, with three appearances on The Tonight Show and appearances on Late Night With David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, among others.

Through it all, she has shared the journey and the art that grows out of it with a loyal cadre of fans.

"Growing as a person and as a writer," she says, "then taking a step back and only recording the songs that I absolutely believe in a hundred percent keeps me connected and gives me a sound people recognize as distinctively mine.”

That relationship with fans still inspires her, and it is one she solidifies each time she steps on a stage. It is a tradition she keeps alive with many of the songs on the new record, including “The World Goes On.”

"We all go through feeling down, and I've been there, where you just think, 'God, give me a reason to get out of bed,'" she says. “There are so many great things in life and in the world to look forward to and you just have to find your strength within to start over. Still, that's not to say there's not a side of me that doesn't love doing fun, light songs like 'John Deere Letter' or ‘Wide Awake’ from the new project. I love songs that make people laugh."

No matter which side of human emotion she is exploring, Jamie’s strength lies in the things she loves--songwriting and performing--and her art lies in bringing the realities of life to both. It is something her audience has treasured since the beginning.

"Knowing that the fans are still with me, still caring about my music," she says, "means the world to me. It's the one thing that propels me.”

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Troy Olsen

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:38:00 GMT

That Troy Olsen's songs invoke images of deserts, tumbleweeds and small towns is not by chance. Growing up in rural Arizona, Troy has lived the life of the American cowboy. The work ethic ingrained in him as a child, along with the influence of his musical idols—Dwight Yoakam, Glen Campbell, Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen—have molded him into a truly unique and driven artist.

Raised in tiny Duncan, Ariz., not far from the New Mexico line, Troy split his time between his parents' ranch and his grandparents', where he worked with his cousins. His grandparents didn't have electricity, but during the day a portable radio pulled in the signal from a local AM station. “The playlist was probably 10 years behind,” Troy says of the ‘70s and ‘80s country he heard. “I love that era.”

He had become so passionate and obsessed with seeing and listening to more of this music, he would drive a pickup truck to the top of a nearby mesa in order to get reception so he could watch The Nashville Network on a portable television plugged into the truck's cigarette lighter. It was there that he was exposed to the videos of Yoakam, Foster & Lloyd, the O'Kanes and other late ‘80s stars. “I had to have a guitar,” Troy admits with a smile.

He got one and taught himself to play. Emulating his heroes Yoakam and Earle, songwriting soon followed. “Almost from the beginning I realized that I should write songs because that's what they did,” he says. “It felt natural.”

Troy soon discovered, by accident, that he could make a microphone out of his Walkman when he inadvertently plugged his headphones in to the input instead of the output. He quickly adapted his cassette deck into a multi-track recorder and his recording career was born. “I was always recording, but I wasn't really doing anything with it,” he says. “It was just something fun to do. Nobody told me to do it. I just loved doing it.

In high school he met two brothers who played in their dad's band. Troy began jamming with them and his music moved beyond his bedroom. “I was hooked,” he says.

After high school he began playing gigs on Friday and Saturday night. “I made 50 bucks a night, $100 a week and I actually lived on that,” he says.

While he took some college classes at the behest of his mother, it didn't last. “My heart wasn't in it,” he admits. “All I wanted to do was play music.”

Buoyed by an innate ability to entertain and a strong work ethic, Troy's reputation grew. Roadhouse playing led to bigger and better gigs. At one point he was leading two performing lives: one the successful performer who covered other people's songs to the delight of club owners and patrons across the Southwest and the other a singer/songwriter who recorded his own music. “I was living a dual life,” Troy admits.

Although very successful, in 2002 Troy decided to leave his life on the road and move to Nashville. He had a career that many could only hope for, but he wanted more. “My idea of success was to be on the radio. I'd opened for every major country artist there was, I'd played for all sized crowds, from 20-20,000 people. I had done everything you could possibly do with that type of existence.

“I knew in the back of my mind that if I never came here and tried it, I would have hated myself later in life for never taking the leap,” he says.

Troy dedicated himself to perfecting his craft as a songwriter and singer. He purchased a studio rig and spent 12 hours a day learning how to master both the board and the booth. He dove headlong into figuring out how to reach his goal: to be on the radio.

Like a cook in his kitchen, Troy would emerge from his studio to share what he had created and then return to tweak it some more. “I could cook it up and make sure it tasted great before I served it,” says Troy. “It's all I thought about. I didn't want my demos to sound like demos; I wanted them to sound like masters.”

Along the way, he co-wrote a hit song for Blake Shelton, the top 10 “I'll Just Hold On,” and a cut that Tim McGraw recorded for his Southern Voice album, “Ghost Town Train.”

He wrote the latter song, a plaintive cry for a lost lover, with hit songwriter Marv Green (George Strait's “It Just Comes Natural”). The song represented a breakthrough for Troy. “It was the first time I had the DNA of what I thought my sound was in my head,” Troy admits. “If I never write anything else, I've got one song that really represents me and my music.”

In the fall of 2009, he took six of his self-penned songs and performed them at a Nashville showcase packed with the industry's elite. His unique western sound, lived-in voice, and authentic delivery were unanimously well received.

The following day Troy signed with the legendary EMI, home to Capitol Records artists as varied and successful as Frank Sinatra, Garth Brooks, and Keith Urban.

His hard work has finally paid off and Troy sees his goal of being heard on the radio within reach. No doubt, he's got the songs. First single “Summer Thing,” which he penned with Ben Hayslip and Jimmy Yeary, is an enchanting ode to warm weather and women.

“Tryin' To Find The Sun” is another radio-friendly tune. “It's about a girl leaving town. The beauty of it is that it doesn't say why she's going, just that she's going.”

“Tumbleweed,” which he co-wrote with brothers Jim and Brett Beavers and which conjures images of cowboys and barbed wire fences, is a perfect example of where Troy's music comes from: that place on the horizon where the sun goes down. “From the birth of the song to the mastering, I make every decision with my heart and my heart is in the West,” Troy says.

Not that a fan in, say Atlanta or Des Moines, Iowa, couldn't relate. “Everybody has sunsets,” Troy explains. “If you stare west, that's where my music comes from.”

In the world of Music Row recording, it's rare for a new artist to have a hand in producing their major label debut, let alone self-producing it, but Troy did just that, using the skills he began honing many years before on a modified cassette deck that he turned into a multi-track recorder.

Troy's usage of modern techniques applied to traditional country songs creates a unique sound that's undeniably country, but fresh. His songs resonate with the richness of the American Southwest while still representative of 21st century culture. “My journey has been a long one,” Troy admits, “but it's taken every minute of it for me to get it together.”

In attempting to emulate heroes Yoakam, Earle, Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell, among others, Troy finally discovered his niche. “My inability to sound like my heroes is what makes me sound different from everybody else,” he says.

In this era of synthesized sounds and global urbanization of music, Troy Olsen is the rare exception – an exceptionally talented country musician who has every right to wear a cowboy hat.

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