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 Two years of heavy travel promotion involving his first,
and successful, CD is playing with Billy Currington’s
head and providing plenty of fodder for the emerging Country
music singer-songwriter’s next release, due out early
to mid-2005.
On this Thursday autumn morning, he’s suffering big
time from road-fatigue memory. He struggles for a few moments
to recall where he’s been the past few days and what
lies ahead. “Wait, no. I just got back from Charlotte,
North Carolina, and I’m jumping on a bus tonight at
midnight for Columbus, Ohio,” he says sheepishly from
his adopted hometown of Nashville.
Wherever Currington is this week, it’s a far piece
from where he grew up in sometimes less-than-ideal circumstances
in Rincon, Georgia, about 30 minutes outside of Savannah.
That life inspired his first single, “Walk a Little
Straighter,” a song whose chorus he wrote at 12, recalling
his father’s fatal two-step with alcohol abuse. “He’d
get drunk and a little crazy,” Currington says matter-of-factly. “He
eventually died of drinking and cancer.” The extremely
personal song resonated with Country-music fans, peaking
at number eight on the Billboard Country chart.
Since the song’s release, “I’ve run into
so many people who have shared their stories,” the
31-year-old Currington says. “Every one of them is
similar. I’ve come to realize there are many people
just like him. I don’t look at him as a bad guy — never
did. He was just a guy with a problem who never knew it,
I guess, or dealt with it. Who knows, he might have someday
if it hadn’t killed him.”
Hard knocks aside, Currington credits his dad with planting
the seeds of his musical interest. “He’d play
Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, The Statler Brothers, Kenny
Rogers, all those guys,” Currington says. “I
loved it, and I’d play those myself when he wasn’t
around. I really loved Alabama. I remember taking a radio
in the bathroom and singing like I was Randy Owen.
Read the complete story about Billy Currington in the
pages
of Cowboys & Indians magazine at
your local newsstand or call (800) 982-5370.
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