Clare Dunn has hit the airwaves with her single, “Move On,” but it’s not the first time she’s been on the radio. She sang background vocals on a certain superstar’s hit song a few years ago while she was still in college.
“I was writing a lot at the time with Jeff Stephens, who is Luke [Bryan’s] producer,” Clare recalls. “Jeff and I had been working together and then one day he just said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this song that I’m working on with Luke, and maybe you want to sing a part? You want to sing backup?’ And I said, ‘Sure! Tell me where to be and what time to be there.’ I showed up to the studio a couple of days later and sang the song.”
The Colorado native wasn’t sure if her vocals made Luke’s smash “Country Girl [Shake It For Me],” until she heard it on the radio.
“Me and my sister were in her pickup cruising down the road. She’d picked me up from the airport and we were in the Oklahoma Panhandle somewhere, and she was flipping through the radio stations. And I heard about two seconds of it, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I know that song.’ I said, ‘Tayla, go back.’ So, she put it back on the station, and right then, the chorus kicked in and I heard myself,” she says. “I was like, ‘WWHaat?!’ And so that was the first time I heard myself on the radio, and I was like, ‘I know that voice! Wait a minute! That’s me! They kept my part! Ahhhh!’ So, I knew then that they kept it.” [laughs]
Clare is set to tour with Miranda Lambert on her Roadside Bars and Pink Guitars Tour this fall.
Audio / Newcomer Clare Dunn talks about singing background vocals on one of Luke Bryan’s songs.
DownloadClare Dunn (Country Girl) 1 OC: …my business. :39
“I was still in college, and I was writing a lot at the time with Jeff Stephens, who is Luke’s producer. Jeff and I had been working together and then one day he just said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this song that I’m working on with Luke, and maybe you want to sing a part? You want to sing backup?’ And I said, ‘Sure! Tell me where to be and what time to be there.’ I showed up to the studio a couple of days later and sang the song. Any time you’re making a record, you don’t know necessarily what’s going to be kept, what’s not going to be kept, and that’s just the way it can go sometimes. So, I sang the part and I didn’t think much about it, and I left the studio and went about my business.”
Audio / Clare Dunn reveals the first time she heard herself on the radio was singing background vocals on Luke Bryan’s “Country Girl [Shake It For Me].”
DownloadClare Dunn (Country Girl) 2 OC: …kept it. [laughs] :40
“A couple months later, I had flown into Oklahoma City. I was going home to visit my family, and it was just released. Me and my sister were in her pickup cruising down the road. She’d picked me up from the airport and we were in the Oklahoma Panhandle somewhere, and she was flipping through the radio stations. And I heard about two seconds of it, and I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I know that song.’ I said, ‘Tayla, go back.’ So, she put it back on the station, and right then, the chorus kicked in and I heard myself. I was like, ‘WWHaat?’ And so that was the first time I heard myself on the radio, and I was like, ‘I know that voice! Wait a minute! That’s me! They kept my part! Ahhhh!’ So, I knew then that they kept it.” [laughs]
