Alan Jackson (20^th Anniversary of Sept 11) OC: …it all started. 1:24
“Yeah, I mean it makes me feel really warm inside to know that that song and at the same time I feel a little bit surprised that it has lasted all this – these years. When I first wrote it, I didn’t think I would record it. And then we didn’t think it would ever – we would want to release it. At first I didn’t think I would ever write a song about the event because I just didn’t feel right about it and then this came out of nowhere and then it went on to be such an anthem for it for years. And now it’s kind of grown into just its own song outside of 9/11 where it’s just a song about faith and hope and love. And I see that in the crowds now. And a lot of my fans, younger fans weren’t hardly even around when 9/11 happened but they have connected with that song. And it’s one of the highlights of the show now and it’s just amazing that it has outlived where it really began. So, it can’t help but make me feel very proud that something like that has helped people through that hard time in the beginning and it still has a lasting affect outside of where it all started.”

AJ (Where Were You) 2 OC: …same feelings. 1:33
“Well, I don’t know – I think I was probably like most people that were impacted with that day and the months that followed. You know, everybody was glued to the news and television and I think it really affected a lot of people – their perspective on their lives and their jobs and their families and where they were and what they were wanting to do and how they looked at things. And I guess…I mean, that’s what I was thinking, too. And I just pretty much visualized a lot of those scenes and stories I’d heard and seen on television or heard people talk about. The song came out of nowhere in the middle of the night – the chorus did. Just a gift. And I got up and scribbled it down and put the melody down so I wouldn’t forget it, and then the next day I started piecing all those verses together that were the thoughts I’d had or visuals I’d had, and…that was about it. I think it was just really…I had so many people tell me that there’s always a line or something in there that they did, whether it was go to church or pick up their Bible or go see their mother or watch a sunset – I mean, just a lot of things in there people told me that they had actually done those things, so…I guess I was like everybody else, just feeling those same feelings.”

AJ (Where Were You) 3 OC: …meant something. :56
“It was a tough performance for me. You know, just the whole idea of releasing that song was a little bit tough. I wasn’t sure I wanted to put that out, but everybody convinced me that it was the thing to do…and in retrospect, I agree with that. But, you know, I hadn’t really sung the song much, first of all. It was just in the studio, basically, and when I wrote it…so it’s hard to go out there and sing something new anyway, and just the topic made it nerve-wracking, too. You know, I didn’t think about what was going to happen or anything – we just sang it. And I just remember, other than being relieved that I got through it, I just felt very proud that it seemed to cause a reaction in people…and I was proud that I got to do it, and that it seemed like it meant something.”

Brandon Lay (9-11) OC: …changed forever. :52
“I remember 9-11 very vividly. I was in Ms. Munn’s College Algebra class. It was a Tuesday. We happened to be able to bring breakfast, it was our day to bring breakfast to school that day, and Megan Smith was in my class and she came in and said something’s hit one of the towers in New York. There was a bomb or something. And the principal came and pulled Ms. Munn out in the hall and told her. From then on, we listened to some of the radio that day. Obviously, when we got home, we saw the replay of all that, and it was just unbelievable. I was in my sister’s Honda Accord – I had just got my driver’s license – and I went to go fill it up with gas and there was none, and I just remember thinking this country we live in now has just changed forever.”

Darius Rucker (9-11) OC: …vicious day. :24
“[On] 9-11, I was playing golf with a friend early in the morning. Had an apartment in New York, and I lived in New York kind of at the time. If you looked out my bedroom window, we saw the World Trade Center. I was on my way back home. I was playing a 7 o’clock round of golf, and then I was catching a noon flight, and when I was finishing up, we stopped in to get a drink and I looked and we saw the second tower come down. It was a vicious day.”

Eric Church (9-11) OC: …that feeling. :23
“I was driving into work — the Shop-At-Home Network — I was listening to (WSIX’s) Gerry House, I remember that, and the news broke. [I] really couldn’t grasp what had happened until I got to work and saw it for myself on television. I remember I watched the second plane hit the tower in real time. I had just moved to Nashville earlier that year, and all I remember is wanting to go home and be with those I loved. I’ll never, I’ll never forget that feeling.”

Gary Allan (September 11^th) OC: …me outta there. 1:31
“I can remember exactly where I was on 9-11. I had played in Switzerland the 10^th at Gstaad and the band flew home and me and Jake Kelly flew to London to do a show on September 11^th in a bar. I was in the BBC doing media, I was sitting there doing interviews, and they had glass walls and there were cubicles, so I could see through into other offices.  I remember looking over, they were showing the first plane fly into the building, and I said, ‘Are they editing movies over there?’ And they all kind of looked at me pretty serious and said, ‘No, that’s live.’  And that was right when the second plane flew in, and I said, ‘That’s live?! That’s the twin towers?” And they said, ‘Yes.’ And I remember looking at John, my manager, and said, ‘Man, let’s get out of here!’ And that’s when the U.S. put out a statement saying that nobody’s flying into the U.S. If it flies, it dies, don’t approach us right now was the whole message. And I got stuck there for three weeks watching the media. It was really crazy times, just nobody really knowing, ‘cause it took us a while to get our heads around what had actually happened, but it was scary. I got trapped there for a couple of weeks. I remember my wife Angela got me out before the record label did. I remember going to the airport and John, my manager, saying you’re wasting your time, you’re not going to get out of here, and my wife at the time was a flight attendant, and she said, ‘Go sit at this terminal.’ That’s when you could just walk in and sit by a terminal. And I went in and sat there and eventually this flight attendant came out and said, ‘Are you Gary?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘Come on,’ and snuck me onto a plane and got me outta there.”

Jordan Davis (September 11^th) OC: …happen again. :51
“Yeah, I think I was in second period, Louisiana studies, Miss Porter was the teacher. I was wearing my football jersey ‘cause we had a football game that night. And I think back on that as like how many times in your life can you explain in that much detail what you were wearing? The number – I was number 11, it was a blue jersey, white lettering with yellow numbers. I’d never had anything just hit me that (hard) and just be that scary. But I remember just for the rest of the day, there was no school. I mean, we obviously stayed there, but nobody was teaching. Every TV was on and everybody was glued to it. I don’t know, it was just something that I still kinda get chillbumps about now thinking back on it. It’s one of those things that you pray never to happen again.”

Keith Urban (September 11^th) OC: …lot of people. 1:14
“Yeah, I was in Florida. We had just played a show on the night, either the 9^th, I think it might have been the 9^th or the 10^th, somewhere around there. It was right before it. And then we decided to stay down and have a few days vacation on the beach down there and I remember that morning. I didn’t turn the news on and I was really grateful that I didn’t because I had a few extra hours before I was aware of this reality that was going on that would change everything. But the beach was deserted, and it was an eerie, ominous feeling in the air and I couldn’t put my finger on it. when we ended up going back to the house that we were renting we put the news on and that was the first time I saw what was happening and I couldn’t take it in. It was too surreal. Couldn’t fly anywhere. I had to send my tour bus to come down and get me and then bus all the way back to Nashville. My mom was staying with me at the time, and she was panicked and worried about me being away and was anxious for me to get home. It was a very, it was a really, really surreal traumatic time for a lot of people.”

Lauren Alaina (September 11^th) OC: …very scared. 1:11
“I was in first grade when 9-11 happened. I don’t have a ton of memories from that time period, but I do specifically remember 9-11, because my father came and picked me up at school which never, ever happened. Like I didn’t miss school, but I didn’t totally understand what was going on. My father explained it to us, and we went to the house. I think he just wanted our family to be together ‘cause it was so devastating and so scary, and nobody knew what was actually happening. And I just remember as a little girl knowing how serious it was. I didn’t know what was going on, but I remember my dad cried and it really affected my dad and little girls don’t see their dads cry very often, and I remember thinking this is not good. This is not good. For both of my parents to come home from work and for us to all be at home in the middle of the day, I just remember being seven years old being very confused and very scared.”

Luke Bryan (9-11 20^th) OC: …when that happened. 1:01
“So, as we come up on the 20^th Anniversary of 9-11, certainly a life-changing event for me and it was really, really challenging for me because I had just moved to Nashville. I moved to Nashville September 1^st, 2001 and I’m in an apartment by myself down in Franklin. I never will forget. I was in bed and my sister called and said, ‘Turn on the TV. A plane had flown into the World Trade Center.’ I remember kinda getting my wits about me, and I turned it on and like so many other people, I saw the second plane hit. And at that moment a lot of innocence is forever lost and that’s certainly when the world changed. And I remember almost getting in the car and going home and spending some time with my family, but I wound up kinda toughing it out in Nashville. But it was a challenging moment being away from your family when that happened.”

Travis Denning (Sept. 11^th) OC: …makes me…(emotional trailoff). 2:18
“I was in Atlanta on a field trip and we were going to a shadow puppet play and we were actually currently making our own shadow puppets. I’m telling you, I can remember everything about this, and my teacher came in, Mr. Andy Payne who I went to church with and amazing guy, great guy, and he came into the room, the little workshop we were in and had to be 12:30p, one o’clock, and he just announced in the room, ‘Hey everybody. There’s been a change of plans. We’re not gonna go to the play, and we actually have to, we’re going to go back home.’ And we’re in Atlanta, so we’re an hour and a half from Warner Robbins. I walked past him, and I said, ‘Well, what’s going on?’ He didn’t even look at me. He just said, ‘Everybody, get your stuff and we’ll get back in the bus and we’ll get rolling.’ I thought that was pretty weird. We did not go back to the school. We got dropped off at a Chik-fil-a parking lot down the road from the school and all our parents were picking us up and cops were there, and then I remember just at that point something was very wrong. I remember my grandmother picked me up and took me to his house. My dad eventually got to the house. We did not turn on the TV until he got there, but as soon as he turned on the TV every channel had it on. And then it hit you like a freight train, and you just think we’re at war. And then it hits you why we left Atlanta is because nobody knew what was going on, and they thought Atlanta might be attacked. Just the overwhelming like uncertainty hit, and then just the worst part is it hits you that my mom is in D.C. She’s at the Pentagon, and the Pentagon was attacked and we couldn’t get ahold of my mom, but it worked out. It was all good  She was at the hotel. The impact blew out the windows at the hotel, but (pause) we couldn’t get ahold of her for a while, so…it’s weird. It’s still kinda like, makes me…(gets emotional)”

Travis Denning (Sept. 11^th) 2 OC: …that is nuts. :49
“So, eventually my dad got ahold of my mom and she was like, ‘Oh yeah. It has hit the fan here. It is so bad.’ They actually walked down to a separate hotel and got onto the roof and they were able to see directly into the Pentagon and see the crash. Ultimately too, she was like, ‘Well, I’m not getting home any time soon.’ And she ended up renting a car and about two days later pulled up in a rental vehicle. I remember everything about it. It was just so nuts. Then going back to school and just everybody talking about it. And on top of that it felt like the kids and the teachers were equally so astonished. It is wild. It’s just crazy that 20 years is coming up. That is nuts.”

Travis Denning (what he takes on the road) OC: …of America. :30
“Jack Daniels, Coca-Cola and ice, uh, no, I mean, I’ll take my laptop. If I’ve got to do anything, I just want to make sure I can accomplish it. I have brought the workout stuff on the road ‘cause I’ve got to get back in the groove a little bit, so I’ve got the jump rope and all that. And hey, we know what number-three is. There’s a fishing pole in that bay. Don’t worry about it. There’s always a pole; there’s a fishing pole and my Ugly Stick backpack. So, I can look like a 12-year-old fishing nerd at any pond anywhere in the United States of America.”

Travis Denning (Dirt Road Down title of EP) OC: …title of the EP. 1:03
“I think the reason we picked Dirt Road Down as the title of the EP was it looked great standing on its own – that could be the easy answer – but I just loved the encompassing feeling of Dirt Road Down. It sounds like, the same way the song approaches it so many different ways, to me it’s like another dirt road down. I like to think of every EP and every song as just another piece, another page, another chapter of just the stories I want to tell and little bits and pieces of my career, and ultimately when it’s strung together, it’s just the path of my career. And the more I thought about that and just thinking of Dirt Road Down, and that path probably, without sounding too cheesy, it has to be a dirt road. I mean, just the songs I love and where I come from. And so, it just feels like another piece of the puzzle down the dirt road. Once I thought of it that way, it felt like the perfect title of the EP.”

Adam Hambrick (Labor Day) OC: …that summer. :41
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a bad job. I don’t think I had a bad job, ‘cause I actually enjoyed this job ‘cause I was actually sitting in the air conditioning all day over the summer in Arkansas. It was very monotonous, because I was spending every summer day repairing old fallen-apart medical charts in a heart clinic in Little Rock. I would take all these photos of all these records and re-sort them page-by-page and put ‘em back in the manila folder and re-alphabetize ‘em. But I did bring my computer and watch movies while I did it, so I drank a lot of soda and watched a lot of movies that summer.”

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.”

Brandon Lay (Labor Day) OC: …a good one. :13
“You know, I can’t complain too much about Labor Day, ‘cause usually doing landscaping and it had slowed down a little, but the water’s still warm enough to hit the river. I’ve gotten to spend some time out on the lake for Labor Day, so Labor Day’s a good one.”

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 wen 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) OC: …amazing. :22
“Seeing people connect to the music is absolutely, hands-down the biggest reward for me, especially when you go to a place you’ve never been to before and it’s all these people, I mean lots of people out there. You’ve never met a single one of ‘em and they’re singing every word, and you realize that it’s not just a pretty melody and everything, but they get the songs. It’s amazing.”

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.”

Travis Denning (going on the road with Brothers Osborne) OC: …shredding on, you know. :38
“The thing I’m most looking forward to with Brothers is just leaning in harder musically than I ever have, ‘cause we are at risk at getting our butts whupped out there every night. I mean, you’re talking about one of the best touring bands in this genre, but ultimately that’s what I’m most excited about. John told me a couple of months ago, he said, ‘Don’t worry. Our fan base loves guitar solos. They love it. Lean into it.’ So, having an opportunity to really do the thing that I love so much and that made me want to even be in music, which is playing guitar, and knowing that the fans are gonna be into it. I can’t wait for that. It’s gonna be fun to get my shredding on, you know.”

Adam Hambrick (Father’s Day-Dad) OC: …about my dad. :45“When I was a kid, my dad always included me on what he was doing. I feel like I learned a lot from watching go about life and watching him treat people well and with kindness. My dad is a pastor and I watched, my whole growing up, I just watched him serve other people, like put other people’s needs in front of himself and show up in the hospital when Sister Jeanette had surgery or whatever that thing was like any given day, it could be anything. I watched him tile floors in a new Sunday School building. I watched him do literally everything for a ton of different people in a really selfless way. That’s one of the things I admire most about my dad.”

Brandon Lay (father of two) OC: …embrace. :26
“Oh man! Now that I’m a father of two, it’s really it goes from more than just keeping one little guy alive and still having more me and Nicole time to wow, I’m actually a father. We’ve got a party of four now, not that I wasn’t before a father, but you know what I mean. I’m reaching real dad status. It’s a weird feeling, but it’s one I embrace.”

Brothers Osborne (Dad’s music) OC: (John) …anything else. :34
“Our dad listened to everything from Hank Williams to Willie Nelson to even pop music like Mariah Carey and Tom Petty to Bob Seger. You name it and he listened to it, so we really didn’t think about specific genres. We really just kind of soaked it all in, so we listened to it all at one time. It was just music to us. Th ere wasn’t a day in our house without the radio on or there wasn’t a weekend at our house that there wasn’t a party and people had their guitars out, so music to us is like eating and breathing. It’s just as essential as anything else.”

Carrie Underwood (Father’s Day) OC: …guy all around. 1:18
“Well, I am very lucky in my life to have two incredible fathers – my own father and then I get to watch my husband be a father to our boys – strong, amazing men, I am very lucky to be around them. Mike as a dad is just super involved in our boys’ lives, very hands on. It takes a team, definitely, to be able to support my crazy life and Mike’s always running around doing a lot of charity things and he’s always meeting with people and he’s on different boards and stuff like that, so we’re very much switching off duties as far as taking boys here and there to school and  sports and to all the extra-curricular activities. I just love that I feel like we’re such a great team. I love it that he gets to now work with Isaiah on sports and things like that, and I know he loves it too. So, I think that’s one of my favorite qualities about Mike is just how hands on of a father he is and very willing to pick up the slack when I’m crazy busy. Obviously, he’s just a very Godly father, as well. He keeps God as the center of our family and gets to teach our boys all about that, as well. So, he’s just a great guy all around.”

Caylee Hammack (Dad) OC: …forget that. 1:19
“My dad has this really unnerving ability to be able to build anything at all just by thinking of it. He can look at something and build it in his mind and build it by hand, and it always works. I’ve always respected him for that. He’s a very hard worker.  He’s worked every day of his life. He’s also kind, even when he doesn’t have to be. He’s the type of guy who always gives money at the light to whoever it is on the street. One of my favorite moments with my dad was when we were driving to Macon, Georgia. I was playing a show that night, and we were driving up and we saw this dog and I could tell she was a mama dog. I could tell she had babies somewhere that she was trying to nurse, and she was so skinny. And I’m a bleeding heart. I get it from my Mama, and I just start crying, and I’m like, ‘That poor dog. She’s starving trying to feed her babies.’ I thought, ‘Poor dog.” And my dad doesn’t say anything, goes up two more blocks and pulls into the McDonalds. And he goes through and he asks me if I wanted anything, and I say no. I just think he’s hungry. He goes and he buys three or four burgers, and then he goes back to that block and he drives around until we find that dog to feed it to ‘em. I just remember looking at him, being like this is what a man is; this is what a good man does, and I’ll never forget that.”

Darius Rucker (Father’s Day) OC: …loving dad. :41
“I think if you asked my kids what kind of Dad I was they would probably say…Dani would say that I was a fun Dad. My little daughter would say that I was a fun dad; she thinks I’m a lot of fun. I think if you caught them at the right moment they would say I was mean [laughs] because when I’m home I’m not afraid to discipline them. I’m all fun until it’s not fun anymore and then daddy’s not the fun guy. I think that they’d say that I was a fun Dad, I’m a loving Dad and I think they would say that. I’m gone so much that when I’m home, I just shower love upon my kids. I say ‘I love you’ probably fifty times a day. We hug, we kiss all the time. I’m always wanting them to know how much I love them. So I’d hope they’d say that I was a loving dad.”

Darius Rucker (mother’s qualities makes him a great father) OC: …my mom. :45
“She had a lot great qualities, but she was always, family was first for her. She was always a rock and making sure she took care of us and making sure we had things we needed to have to survive – food and clothes and a home – and seeing that and seeing how hard she worked and all the things she did just really made me the father that I am today. I mean, I’m so crazy and hands-on with my kids. I think it all comes from watching my mom have to struggle so much to support us. And so now, I don’t want me or my wife to ever have to struggle, and I don’t want my kids to ever want or wonder where I am or where there mom is. I want them to always know where we are and always be taken care of, and that all comes from my mom.”

Dierks Bentley (dad & performer) OC: …to do both. :28
“When I get home, it’s a totally different reality that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. Just hanging with my girls and doing the things we do and seeing life through their eyes, it’s incredible. It takes a man to do it. It’s not a boys’ game. It takes a man to do it. I love the juxtaposition to be able to be that man and to also go on the road and act like I’m 13 years old and play video games all afternoon waiting for the fans to show up. So, it’s really a blessing to be able to do both.”

Dierks (Father’s Day) OC: …that’s for sure. :10
“My dad was my biggest influence in country music because my dad loved country radio. So, we always drove around listening to country radio and George Strait, Hank Williams and Randy Travis and all these guys, so. Without him, I wouldn’t be doing this, that’s for sure.”

Eric Church (Father’s Day) OC: …always admired. :29
“My dad is a, I’m trying to find the right words to describe him. My dad is a great guy, honest guy, very call it like he sees it, which is where I get a lot of that. No BS. I’m gonna tell you how I feel whether you like it or not. I’m that guy, I’m me…My dad’s that way, so I get a lot of that from him. There’s also an honesty and an integrity that my dad carries himself with that I’ve always admired.”

Eric Church (his father’s influence) OC: …same thing. :32
“My daddy’s always preached, and it’s something that rung true, he’s always preached authenticity. He’s always preached being honest and being true. My daddy’s from a small town, you know it’s a blue collar town, and he’s just always been pretty even-keeled; never too high and never too low. He’s always been honest and authentic. I think it’s a good template. It has been for me thus far, especially with this industry, ‘cause it’s really easy to get high and low. So, I think just keeping everything in perspective and trying to be real, and I think people can sense that, and I certainly will tell my kids the same thing.”

Jon Langston (Father’s Day) OC: …just fine. :16
“My Dad has been my hero all my life. He’s the man I want to be one day when I grow up. I’m thankful for all he’s done for me and the sacrifices he’s made for our family. If I’m half the man he is one day, I’ll be just fine.”

Jordan Davis (fatherhood 2020) OC: …here myself. :46
“Fatherhood is something, it really is tough to put into words, but one of my favorite things to do is to go in and get Eloise up in the mornings, and I just see this little bundle of joy. She is just so happy. She’s got a smile just like Kristen, and so it really is just crazy to go in in the morning. She could be crying, screaming and then you walk in, and the second she sees you, it’s all smiles and laughs. I don’t know. I think the coolest thing with a kid like her age is just the innocence. You see just how happy she is to be here, and I’m very happy she’s here myself.”

Jordan Davis (Father’s Day) OC: …my music. :45
“The thing I love most about my Dad is just his overall love of life. He’s a guy that’s worked hard and is now at a point where he can enjoy it, and he’s living every day to the fullest. That’s something that I’m very thankful that I’ve seen my Dad do and something to learn from. So, that’s probably my favorite quality about the old man, and just the hard work too. My dad ran a furniture business in Shreveport for a long time with his Dad. It was great to grow up and see a guy work hard and helped his Dad build a business from the ground up to a very successful business, and that’s something that I even try to carry over into my music.”

Jordan Davis (fatherhood and impending fatherhood) OC: …ever happened to me. :30
“I’m very blessed to have Eloise and to have another baby coming in September. It’s tough to put into words the change of becoming a dad. It really is an instant change in just your outlook on everything. I think it’s been amazing for me just to come home and see Eloise be so excited. It puts a lot of things into perspective. I think it’s helped with my music. It’s helped with every aspect of my life. Becoming a dad, it’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Josh Turner (Father’s Day) OC: …one of ‘em.  1:05
“As far as talent and potential, my oldest three, especially, they could do anything they wanted to do if they put their mind to it and their heart was there. My oldest [Hampton] is incredible at playing mandolin. Colby, we kind of noticed him turn the corner lately with the fiddle, and Marion is actually playing a ukulele that’s tuned like the top four strings on a guitar, so in essence, he’s learning how to play guitar. They’ve just kind of started incorporating some singing into some playing, so they’re starting the whole singing and playing at the same time kind of thing, and not only that, they’re even learning to play songs together on their individual instruments. So, it’s amazing to see how much they can learn in such a short amount of time. It makes me realize how much I missed out on when I was that age, ‘cause I did take some music lessons growing up and everything, but I think they feed off of each other honestly. I think that’s why they’re getting so good is because they’re all doing it, not just one of ‘em.”

Keith Urban (Father’s Day) OC: …experience that. :36
“The first thing is probably just having someone call you dad. I’m like, ‘Omigosh! I’m her dad! That’s amazing.’ That’s probably the first thing to me. I don’t know, I mean, the different personalities that our two daughters have, that’s amazing. It’s such a long list I think. I always say…I think for the people that haven’t had kids – which I hadn’t for a long, long time. I didn’t have kids ‘til later on, and being around it is not the same as having them, you know? I realize that it’s not something that can be explained until you actually sort of have it, so I’m glad I got to experience that.”

Kip Moore (Father’s Day-dad’s influence) OC: …of us singin’ ‘em. :29
“He would just play all those classic records – Little River Band, Jackson Brown, Springsteen, Seger, Willie Nelson, the Red-Headed Stranger, Kristofferson, Sam Cook – like classic music. He’d be singing the songs and telling us why it was such good music. And I looked up to him so much, that’s the music I gravitated towards and that’s what I continue to listen to. Whenever I think about those old fishing trips, that’s what I think about is on the way down there, him singing those songs and all of us singin’ ‘em.”

Lauren Alaina (Father’s Day best friend) OC: …my brother and I. :29
“My dad is one of my best buds. I absolutely adore him. He is hilarious, and every bit of my personality came from my father directly. (laughs) He is awesome and I’m lucky to be his daughter, and I’m thankful for Father’s Day so that I can celebrate him and show him how much he means to my brother and I.”

Luke Bryan (Father’s Day-life lessons) OC: …live by that. :46
“Well, my dad was, I always just go back to the life lessons that always started either in a fishing boat or hunting somewhere, and that’s why I’ve always kind of been a champion of those types of behaviors certainly with your boys and your children because you get to spend time and hand down values. My dad was always big on just hard work and being good to people and a handshake is the contract. A handshake is your bond, your word. His famous saying always was, ‘Do something right the first time and you won’t have to go back and do it over again.’ I won’t say I batted a thousand perfectly on that, but I’ve kind of tried to live by that.”

Maddie & Tae (Father’s Day) OC: …for Father’s Day. :26
“So, for Father’s Day, I made my Dad – I think it was right before I moved to Nashville – I made my Dad this little photo book where it had like his quotes that have stuck with me my whole life and then some pictures, and it was really funky. It looks horrible. It’s not put together, but that’s one of his favorite gifts that he’s ever gotten, and I cherish that ugly photo book thing that I made for him for Father’s Day.”

Travis Denning (Father’s Day) OC: …for sure. :43
“My dad – I call him ‘Diamond Dave’ and a lot of other people do too. Honestly, I don’t know if I drink more with anybody else more than my Dad. I think a super cool thing now is getting older and knowing that I’m starting to get more and more sustained as a human that it’s like my parents get to be friends now with me and my sister, which is such a cool thing. And so, yeah, me and my Dad – we love music and we love heavy metal and we love all that. We get to go to concerts and football games and drink beer and just enjoy that cool part of a father and a son and a mother and a son where now we get to be friends and it’s really cool. My Dad is my best friend, for sure.”

Vince Gill (Father’s Day) OC: …feels like. :33
“Kindness-hopefully make them kind and that’s all we got. Five great kids, a couple of grandkids. Those grandkids are the complete light of my life. You know, they just show up and the rest of the world can kiss my you-know-what. (laughs)  I say, ‘We’re just gonna go swing in the backyard; we’re gonna wrestle on the bed; we’re gonna eat those Goldfish (crackers), you know? And nothing else kind of seems to matter. And then I think what I love seeing, more than anything, for my kid to finally understand what it means to love, and it’s awesome to see my kid finally get it what that unconditional love really looks like and feels like.”