Jordan Davis (Midnight Crisis) OC: …to hear it. :29
“So, ‘Midnight Crisis’ was written by Derrick Southerland, myself and my producer Paul DiGiovanni, and I played a Veteran’s event a few years ago and Danielle was on the round and I was just absolutely blown away by her voice live. I’ve been a fan of her for a long time, and I knew that when we finished that song, it was something I wanted to get to Danielle to see if it’s something that she would want to sing with me. I’m very grateful she said yes, and really excited how it turned out, so pumped for y’all to hear it.”

Jordan Davis (Buy Dirt success is special) OC: …more special. :13
“It just means a lot more. I wrote it with my brother (Jacob) and two my best friends (Josh and Matt Jenkins) in town and just the content of it. It comes from a really, really honest place. So, when you have songs that mean that much and you get to see them have success like ‘Buy Dirt’ is having, it’s a little bit more special.”

AJ (working people songs) OC: … appreciate that. :28
“I’ve always written songs and recorded songs, other people’s songs, about workin’ people, and workin’, the workin’ life ’cause I mean, that’s where I’m from. I mean, I worked…I’d already had jobs and worked as a grown person before I ever even thought about bein’ in the music business, so I come from that background, and…although I hadn’t had a job in a long time (laughs), I still remember a lot about it, you know, and I remember what the lifestyle is, and I still appreciate that.”

Billy Currington (Labor Day) OC: …record deal. :40
“I started working like at [age] 12, landscaping. This was summer, every summers, and roofing. I started when I was about 16 roofing houses, and that was probably one of my toughest jobs because down there in South Georgia, it gets hot, so doing that every day all summer long. The pawn shop when I moved to Nashville was one of my favorites, even though it was one of my least favorites. The concrete job was my least favorite of all – six years of that, and I couldn’t take it no more. After that job, that was my turning point. Either I’m going to do something else for a living [laughs] or quit and try to really focus on music and get this record deal.”

Carrie Underwood (Labor Day) OC: …born to do. :59
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad job. I’ve had hard jobs. I’ve had jobs that worked random hours. My first job was at a gas station, and that was a lot of fun actually. While I was working at the gas station, I took another job at a hotel down the street. There was nobody else working there. I had one day of training and then the next day I came in, and the lady that had worked there the longest and was training me just didn’t show. So, the second day at work I was now in charge ‘cause I was now the senior member that was working at the hotel. So, I feel like that one was really challenging to figure my way through it, but I did. My best job is definitely what I do now. I really like being on stage. I really like performing for people and just having fun and singing, because that’s what I feel like I was born to do.”

Caylee Hammack (Labor Day-worst job) OC: …worst job. (laughs) :38
“My worst job was working in a nursery, actually. I love kids so I thought I’d be really good at it, but when you’re the new person coming in, you have to change all the diapers first. So, I was changing 45 diapers a day and it got to the point where everything smelled like baby poop. It literally drove me crazy. I would walk my dog and I would have to go to pick up her poop, and it would smell like baby poop, and I just couldn’t handle it, honestly. The smell of poop warded me away. The children were lovely, but the smell of poop lingered, and I couldn’t handle that job. That was my worst job.” (laughs)

Darius Rucker (Labor Day) OC: …pizza. :15
“I was fifteen, and I worked at a pizza place, and the guy decided that at fifteen, that I could not only clean the floors and wash the dishes, but I also had to make pizza. So, for two months, he taught me how to make pizza

Dierks Bentley (Labor Day) OC: …generosity. :26
“Personally, the fans give me amazement. That’s the only word to really sum it up. I look out in the crowd, you know, usually see a lot of faces and fans are cheering. I know each one of these like from the road-the signs are from California…Michelle and Kayla live up in the Ohio area. They’re all, I just see them, and I’m like, ‘Wow!,’ they’re all from different regions. You know when you’re in a different region of the country and you just see certain fans. These people are way more hard core than I am, and I’m just amazed by their generosity.”

Eric Church (Labor Day-odd jobs) OC: …bought at 2am. 1:27
“I had an awful job. I’ve had a lot of awful jobs…my worst one was when I first came to Nashville. I got a job at the Shop at Home Network. I worked midnight, graveyard, midnight to eight. That was bad enough but then I would work all night, go home, shower and then I had writing appointments all day because I was trying to get a career started. I’d go write songs and get meetings just trying to get signed. And end up getting done at 3 of 4 with all of that, I’d go home, take a shower or sleep for a little bit and then I had to be at work again at midnight. So the schedule was bad enough, however, what I had to do at the job…I sold knives from midnight to 7 or 8am. And, anytime somebody calls you at 3 or 4am and needs 200 knives for $19.95, it’s automatically an alarming situation. And I just, I was young and I’d been in a lot of these people’s shoes, I had done this…I knew they were drunk. I knew what they had done. They’d just come home from the bar, flipped on Shop at Home and said, ‘You know what? I need that.’ So the reason the job didn’t last long for me is that I was maybe the worst salesmen in history because I ended up talking a lot of these people out of it, I’d say, ‘I’ll tell you what man, go to bed, call me, I’ll be here in the morning. If you get up in the morning and want these knives you call me back.’ Because I knew what was going to happen, you know. They bought 200 knives for $19.95…first of all some of these people you didn’t know whether you should call the cops. What do you need 200 knives for? Even though I’m selling them…what do you need them for? So, it was awful doing that job. And then they got rid of me because, they were like, ‘You’re the worst. I can’t believe you’re talking people out of it.’ I was like, ‘Man I know…I’ve been there.’ [laughs] I’d want some to talk me out of buying some of the stuff I’ve bought at 2am.”

George Strait (first time on radio) OC: …records I’ve put out. :26
“I took it to a radio station in San Antonio KKYX, and a guy named Jerry King put it on and played it while I ran out to the car to listen to it on the radio. So, it’s just been relationships like that through the years that I’ve had with different people. I don’t know, they’ve just supported me so much and have been very open to the records I’ve put out.”

Jon Langston (Labor Day) OC: …is the bomb. :45
“The worst job – it wasn’t bad – I could just say growing up and stuff and in high school, I was working for my dad. It was a great job, working at the shop. One day I got tired of working for my dad. I thought it’d be smart to go work for somebody else and so I went to work at Chik-fil-a for a family friend, and I’m just not made for cooking chicken. But, I told my dad, ‘Hey, can I come back to work?’ (laughs) So, yeah, I mean, Chik-fil-a a great place to work if you’re into that kind of thing, but not me. But Chik-fil-a is my favorite fast food restaurant of all time. I mean, I will go to war for Chik-fil-a. I eat there probably three or four times a week. Chik-fil-a is the bomb.”

Jon Pardi (Labor Day) OC: …so bored! :17
“The worst job I ever had was at Hometown Grocery Store. I didn’t want to work, I was 15, and I did not want to work at the grocery store. Bagging was fun, but they sent me down the aisles to pull up cans and turn ‘em around and face ‘em, and I would just get so bored!”

Jordan Davis (Labor Day) OC: …worst job. :41
“[My] worst job was probably whenever I got out of school I started working for an environmental group in Baton Rouge, and I was doing actual environmental work at first. I went to my boss probably about four months in and told him that I was going to move to Nashville and write songs. Luckily enough, he let me stay on, but I became the weedeater guy for the landscaping side of the business. I seriously weedeated eight hours a day. The only break I would get would be in-between yard to yard. So, like we would be in the car and I would try to doze off for like 10 minutes. I was covered in grass in the middle of the summer in Baton Rouge. It was awful. That was definitely the worst job.”

Keith Urban (Labor Day-job) OC: …to sell things. 1:56
“I’ve had a lot of crappy jobs. Wow! I don’t know about the worst job, oh, telemarketing. (laughs) I hated it! By all accounts, I was actually pretty good at it, and my boss was really upset that I wanted to quit, ‘cause he said you’d actually be pretty good at it, other than I was just too brutally honest. I was working for a company that at the time sold Franking Machines, which was a thing where – back then – you would put postal impressions on an envelope and send them out, instead of buying a whole stack of stamps. So, you had this thing called a Franking Machine and you’d pre-load it with a whole bunch of pre-paid for stamps. And you just put the envelope(s) in and (sound efx). So, if you’re putting out a whole bunch of mail from a business, it’s much better to get a Franking Machine, then have someone go to the post office all the time. I would have this whole long pitch about, ‘Hi, I’m Keith, blah, blah, blah, what volume of mail would you say you do every week?’ I was talking to this lady from a florist, and she was so sweet, and she goes, ‘Oh, I’d say I send out about three letters a week, love.’ And then I’m supposed to say, ‘Well, then you need a Franking Machine…’ (laughs) ‘cause it’s on the script, you know? I’m going, ‘I’m so sorry, you don’t need what we’re selling. I’m sorry to bother you.’ And she goes, ‘No, no, tell me about this. What are you selling?’ She was the perfect customer, and I went, ‘I promise you. You don’t need this thing. It costs a fortune. You don’t need it. You don’t need it.’ She goes, ‘No, but tell me about it.’ I said, ‘Honestly, I’m not even going to waste your time. You’re so lovely, but thank you so much. Have a great day,’ and I hung up. My boss was standing behind me (laughs), and he goes, ‘They all need Franking Machines. They all need…’ I was like, ‘She didn’t. I hate this job. I quit.’ And that was it. I wasn’t cut out to sell things.”

Kip Moore (Labor Day-worst job) OC: …than that. :21
“I’d have to say my worst job ever was laying sod in the south Georgia heat. There’s nothing than that, especially when somebody would think that you’re waiting for the next sod patch to be thrown to you and you got your back turned, and all of a sudden, that big ole piece of sod hits you right on the back. You got nowhere to clean up, and you’re just stuck with dirt on your back for the rest of the day. It doesn’t get any worse than that.”

Kylie Morgan (the road is her happy place) OC: …that’s me. :48
“The road is truly my happy place. I love going to sleep and not knowing where I’m going to be the next day. I love hotel beds. I literally just eat and breathe the road. It is truly an adventure all the time, and I knew even when I was little that I had to do something where I traveled because I love the feeling of it. I love experiencing new things, and the fact that I truly feel like what I do is not a job. And the fact that I get to see the world, meet so many amazing people, have a one-on-one connection through my music, I never have to work a day in my life because I would do this for free. It is one of the most liberating feelings to finish a song and see someone turn to someone and go, ‘Omigod, that’s me.’”

Luke Bryan (Labor Day-jobs) OC: …Nashville… 1:07
“At age 12 thru 13, I worked at Rubos IGA Supermarket in Leesburg, GA. I worked during the summers on Monday and Tuesday. I stocked and cleaned up the produce.  They paid me under the table…I peeled off all of the brown lettuce. Let’s see, when I was 15, I was a cashier at K-Mart for two months. I worked at K-Mart for two months, and then I reverted back to Rubos because it didn’t really make sense for me to drive all the way into Albany and work for K-Mart. The benefits were great though-you’d get an hour-long on the blue light special. So I started back at Rubos, and then I quit Rubos and worked for my Dad-just awful just driving tractors through cotton all day, and spraying pesticides that eventually would turn your hair green. And then at some point, I started playing guitar. And well, after college I went back and worked for my dad and continued to spray and haul fertilizer around. And then I moved to Nashville…”

Priscilla Block (Labor Day) OC: …didn’t care. :34
“Cleaning Airbnbs, and that was really interesting ‘cause you’d find some crazy things in those Airbnbs. Those bachelorette parties, all I’m saying is I want to be invited next time. I was kind of sad that I had to be the house cleaner and I wasn’t at the bachelorette party. It was great! You’d go in and sometimes there’d be extra food, alcohol. When I walked in and I would see White Claws in the fridge, I’m, ‘Bingo, baby! Let’s go!’ I don’t know if I was supposed to be taking the alcohol, but I didn’t care.”

Travis Denning (Labor Day) OC: …right for it. :13
“I’ve always played music. I mean, my first gig was when I was 16-years-old. That was what I did. And as soon as I found out I could make money doing it, I thought I’d much rather make money doing this than anything else, so I went right for it.”

Tyler Hubbard (Labor Day) OC: …where I’m at. :43
“One of the worst jobs – I don’t know if it was the worst job, definitely the most physical, was probably pouring concrete. I did that for a year with a friend that had a concrete business, and we poured a lot of concrete that year, and I just remember really early mornings and really late nights. It was, if the sun was up, we were working, and that was pretty influential in creating the work ethic that I have. It was either that or my dad had a tree service that I grew up working with him doing that, as well, which was again, very manual labor, very long days and taught me a lot about working hard. And so, those were special times and as hard as it was, I’m thankful for those years. I love working hard, and I’m grateful for the struggle that got me where I’m at.”

Hey y’all! It’s Billy Currington, wishing you a very happy Labor Day weekend.

This is TJ, and I’m John, and we are Brothers Osborne, wishing you a happy and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey everyone! I’m Carrie Underwood, hoping you have a happy Labor Day weekend.

Hey everybody! This is Catie Offerman, wishing you a fun and work-free Labor Day Weekend.

Hey y’all! This is Caylee Hammack. I’m wishing you a fun and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey! It’s Darius Rucker, and I hope you have a have a happy work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey! It’s Eric Church, and I hope you have a have a happy Labor Day weekend.

Hey! I’m Jon Langston. Hope you have a Happy Labor Day weekend.

Hey! It’s Jon Pardi, and I hope you have a happy and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey! I’m Jordan Davis, wishing you a happy and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey! It’s Kacey Musgraves, hoping you have a happy Labor Day weekend.

Hi everybody! This is Keith Urban, wishing you a very happy Labor Day weekend.

Hey—what’s happening guys? This is Kip Moore, wishing you a happy and work-free Labor Day Weekend.

Hey, it’s Kylie Morgan, wishing you a fun and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hi! We’re Little Big Town, hoping you have a work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey! It’s Luke Bryan, and I hope you have a have a happy Labor Day weekend.

Hey everybody! I’m Maddie, and I’m Tae, and we’re Maddie & Tae, hoping you have a happy and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey everybody, I’m Parker McCollum, wishing you a work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey, it’s Priscilla Block, wishing you a fun and work-free Labor Day Weekend.

Hey everybody, this is Reba McEntire, wishing you and your family and all your friends a Happy Labor Day Weekend.

Hey everybody! I’m Sam Hunt. Have a great and work-free Labor Day weekend.

Hey y’all. It’s Travis Denning, hoping you have a happy and work-free Labor Day weekend.

“Hey y’all, it’s Tyler Hubbard, wishing you a fun and work-free Labor Day Weekend.

AJ (fave 4^th of July memory) OC: …very cool. :58
Well, this one is hard to beat. A couple of years ago, maybe longer than that now, I had an old boat in Florida. It’s like an old antique motor yacht, and it was kind of a cool old boat. I had taken that boat, I’ve always wanted to take it up north like to New York and up in that area, up in the northeast where it’s so pretty. So, we took the boat up there and Denise and the girls, we all went up. They like going to New York City, which I don’t really care about going to the city. So, I got to stay in my boat there at the harbor tied up, which was cool anyway. So they spent time in the city a few days and then that was Fourth of July, and we went out in the Hudson River that night and they shot the fireworks off and we were anchored out in front of the Statue of Liberty and New York City was behind us, and the Statue of Liberty and the fireworks were going off sitting on that boat. That was the coolest thing and my girls still talk about that. I mean, that was the coolest thing on Fourth of July I can ever remember. I can’t top that one probably. It was emotional sitting there watching the Statue of Liberty and thinking about all that. It was very cool.”

Billy Currington (4^th of July) OC: …of my life. :16
“My best memories would be hanging out with my mom, brother and sister on the beach on Tybee Island right off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. We’d go there every year, and we’d light our own fireworks and watch the ones that they had for us. They were the best times, some of the best times of my life.”

Carrie Underwood (favorite Fourth of July memory) OC: …work out. :51
“I think my favorite Fourth of July memory would be going to the fireworks stand and picking out which fireworks I wanted to do. I must’ve been like 7 or 8, and I came home and made a list of what order I wanted to do them in, because I wanted to put a show on for Mom and Dad, and of course I couldn’t wait until it was dark outside (laughs). So, I made my Mom and Dad get the lawn chairs and come out to the backyard and watch some not very dramatic fireworks at like six o’clock in the evening, but I was so proud of myself, and I was so proud of the show that I put on. So, I feel like that was a little training for what I do now – putting on shows, figuring out how it’s all going to work out.”

Darius Rucker (fireworks) OC: …off once. :15
“Oh, I love fireworks. We had the bottle rocket fights and all that good stuff. I was the typical little crazy kid, you know. In South Carolina, it was always legal, so we shot fireworks when it was legal. We did all that sort of stuff. I almost blew my hand off once.”

Eric Church (4th of July) OC: …freedoms. 1:17
“The Fourth of July for me, growing up we would always go to the lake, we didn’t live on the lake but we would all go to the lake. Had a buddy who had a pontoon and we would always get on the pontoon and you go out and you’d tie all the pontoons together and just have a big time. This was before, I was younger then, the adults were having more fun than we were, you know it was just to go swim in the water and shoot off fireworks. Basically, water tailgating is what it was. And then as we got older, same thing…we would just, us younger kids had our own boat and we had as much fun as the adults.”

Jon Langston (Fourth of July) OC: …either way. :17
“The Fourth of July is usually different every year. We’re usually playing shows, or we’re out on the lake or at the beach, or sometimes I’ve said, ‘I’m staying at home,’ shooting fireworks off the back porch or something. That’s probably not the safest thing, but we have a good time either way.”

Jordan Davis (Fourth of July) 2 OC: …really cool. :17
“Probably baseball games, firework shows at baseball games. We’d go to Shreveport Captains games, so yeah, we’d do that or barbecues and fireworks. I can remember being on the lake for a couple of Fourth of Julys. We’d take the boat out and we’d watch the downtown fireworks show from the boat, which was really cool.”

Josh Turner (fireworks) OC: …of money. [laughs] :20
“Yeah, we had fireworks around, especially my Daddy’s family. All the individual families had a lot of competition with each other and tried to outdo each other to try to see who had the biggest and baddest fireworks and all that. [laughs] My daddy, I think, was the smartest one. He just went out and bought maybe $25 worth of fireworks and let everybody else put on the big show, so he saved a lot of money.” [laughs]

Keith Urban (coming to America 1^st time) OC: …as I could. :39
“1989 was the first year I came to the States, and it had always been my goal, but I had no plan on how to get here. It was just a case of keep playing, keep getting better at what you do, and then hopefully, somehow, some way I’ll end up over here. The guy who was managing me at the time, we just planned a trip over here – it was actually for the New Music Seminar in New York. And we came over for that, and then we did a trip down to Nashville, and I was shopping my little demo around. I think I humored everybody more than anything else [laughs] with my tragic, ill-fitting demo for the time. So, I left there, but I was just so committed to coming back as quick as I could.”

Luke Bryan (4th of July memories) OC: …we used to. :21
“Some of my favorite Fourth of July memories were spent on Lake Blackshear down in Georgia with my family. I was always kind of in charge of driving home from Tennessee and picking up all the fireworks and my nieces and nephews always got excited when I rolled in because they knew I had all the fireworks. But, it was always a great memory, and I miss not getting to do that as much as we used to.”

Luke Bryan (Fourth of July plans) OC: …on the fourth. :15
“My plans for the Fourth are always to be on the boat somewhere in the water, and buy a few fireworks, send ‘em up in the sky for the boys, but it’s always a boat and water, whether it’s in the Gulf of Mexico, whether it’s in Georgia…we don’t have a total plan yet, but we’ll be having a good time on the fourth.”

Maddie & Tae (Fourth of July) OC: …it’s perfect. :29
TAE: “One of my favorite Fourth of July traditions – I’d say it’s a tradition ‘cause it happens every year, but I’m not always able to make it – is that we go to my grandparents in Oklahoma, and we all line up lawn chairs right in front of their garage and we just light fireworks. We always do it far away and then we light it, and we always run back and watch the fireworks, but that’s probably one of my favorite memories.” MADDIE: “My birthday is July 7th, so I always get built-in fireworks for my birthday, and sometimes we actually celebrate it on the 4th, because there’s fireworks everywhere, so it’s perfect.”

Parker McCollum (Fourth of July) OC: …days of my life. :23
“My favorite Fourth of July memories growing up are actually kind of dangerous now that I think about it, but we used to have fireworks wars where we’d shoot like roman candles and bottle rockets. We’d always go to my grandma’s house, pop fireworks and we’d end up shooting ’em at each other and having wars; no eye protection, no nothing, just shooting bottle rockets at each other’s faces. But it was so fun; some of the best days of my life.”

Priscilla Block (Fourth of July) OC: …we get crazy. :26
“I love Fourth of July. I usually always have a Fourth of July party. It is known that there is a slip-n-slide at my house on Fourth of July. You know, it’s such a great holiday to just bring friends together and, I don’t know, we get wild on the Fourth. We get crazy.”

Sam Hunt (Fourth of July) OC: …good time. :39
“My granddad on the other side of my family, he would always take a lot of pride…fireworks were actually, I’m from Georgia, and most of them were illegal, I’m pretty sure, growing up. But over in Alabama, that’s where all the firework stands were, and we only had to drive 10, 15 minutes to get to the Alabama line, so we could go get a bundle of fireworks pretty easy. But he would always take a lot of pride in going and finding all the good stuff and coming back with a big pile. He’d have his torch out there at the end of the driveway and we’d all eat homemade ice cream and put down towels on the driveway and he’d shoot off fireworks for 30-45 minutes. Such a good time.”

Travis Denning (Fourth of July) OC: …will love. :51
“Fourth of July in Warner Robins, Georgia is an event. It’s something else. In fact, forever they’ve thrown an Independence Day concert, and back in the day, it was huge. It was the biggest thing they did all year. They would actually have the concert in the MAC (McConnell-Talbert Stadium), which was the high school football stadium that Warner Robins and Northside and Houston County shared. I mean, one year they had Wynonna play and then they had Josh Turner one year, Darius Rucker. I mean it was like a big deal, and there’d be 15,000, 20,000 people there, and I think it’s so cool that there’s a little bit of a legacy of people coming together in that town and making something happen, you know? I’ll never forget going to those shows and thinking, I was more proud of what the city had done. I was like, ‘That’s just so cool that they could put together a show like this, an event that everybody will love.”

Tyler Hubbard (Fourth of July) OC: …that freedom. :43