There are just a few days before Sam Hunt releases his debut album, Montevallo, to the world, and it features his soon-to-be chart-topping hit, “Leave the Night On,” plus nine other songs he co-wrote. The title of the album is pretty unusual, and he tells us it’s the name of a little town in Alabama.

“Montevallo is the name of a town south of Birmingham, about 20-30 minutes. I had never spent any time there, but went to school for several years in Birmingham and met a girl from Montevallo just as I was leaving to head to Nashville,” says Sam. “Over the course of the next several years as I was on this journey musically, figuring out the songwriting thing and doing all the things that led up to this moment, I was writing songs that were inspired by the experiences I was living, and the girl from Montevallo had a lot to do with that and a lot of influence came from her and came from experiences in that town, came from other people in that town. It’s just a word that when I see it or when I hear someone else say it, it has a whole new emotion attached to it, than when I first left Birmingham, and that’s the same emotion that I get when I read the track listing on the record.”

Sam moved to Birmingham from his native Georgia to attend school before moving to Nashville to pursue his musical career. He’s currently out on the road with Kip Moore on the CMT On Tour: Up in Smoke trek.

Sam Hunt (Montevallo title) 1 OC: …tap into. 1:07
“Montevallo is the name of a town south of Birmingham, about 20-30 minutes. I had never spent any time there, but went to school for several years in Birmingham and met a girl from Montevallo just as I was leaving to head to Nashville. Over the course of the next several years as I was on this journey musically, figuring out the songwriting thing and doing all the things that led up to this moment, I was writing songs that were inspired by the experiences I was living, and the girl from Montevallo had a lot to do with that and a lot of influence came from her and came from experiences in that town, came from other people in that town. It’s just a word that when I see it or when I hear someone else say it, it has a whole new emotion attached to it, than when I first left Birmingham, and that’s the same emotion that I get when I read the track listing on the record. So, there’s just a connection between all those songs and the album title personally. Hopefully, even though people might not be aware of that story, there’s just somehow subliminally, there’s a connection there that they’re able to tap into.”