Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bob picking Ram the line, Well, I'm on the line
right now talking to Josh Tunnergan Josh, the name of
the tour this year, of course, it's named after your
latest album, The Country Music Thing Tour. Aren't you glad
to be part of the country music family? Look how
much you've done in a short time.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, yeah, I tell you. I spent a lot of
days pinching myself, you know, when when I look back
on things that I was able to do. And and
I literally just watched the I came across a DVD
here the other day that was basically it was the
the television portion of the Randy Travis's twenty fifth anniversary
(00:38):
night at the Grand Ole Opry, and and he was
singing songs with all the people that was on his
twenty fifth anniversary duet record, and of course I was
on there with him, and that was that was such
a god thing because the song that Randy and I
did on that record was actually pitched to me from
my fifth record, Punching Bag, and I had already finished
(01:01):
the record and didn't have a use for the song.
And I was like, man, I love the song, but
you know, we're already the record's already in the can,
and so I had to kind of let it go.
And then literally about a month or two later, I'm
getting a call from Randy's team saying, hey, Randy wants
you to sing on his duet record with him. And
I said, okay. I said, you know, see how any
(01:21):
songs picked out? And they said, well, he's got one,
and they told me the title and and I said,
that's the one that I had to let go. And
so I got to sing it anyway with my hero.
So it was incredible.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You see, there's a reason for everything. Okay, now let's
go back. When you sing that song with Randy, you
walk in the studio, Come on, man, you got to
be nervous. Right.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Oh my gosh, that that that word doesn't even you know,
begin to describe it. I knew going in there. I said,
I got to put on my my my country singer
pants today because you know, because they had me, they
had me in the same vocal booth as Randy. What like,
we weren't separate, Like we were singing shoulders shoulder in there.
(02:03):
You know, he had a mic, I had a mic.
But at the same time, it's like, okay, I gotta
show everybody what I made of here today.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
So when you're singing the song, are you looking at
him or you're trying not to look at him?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It was a little both, you know. When I was singing,
I was definitely trying not to look.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
At any that's you know, all the subject of Grandual Opera.
You've been a member of the Grand Ole Opry for
years now.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, I think I got inducted into the opry in
two thousand and seven something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
How did that happen? Big surprise?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, it was. It was definitely a big surprise because
I never expected to be inducted that early. I didn't
think I had paid my dues yet, but they offered
it to me, and you know, I think a lot
of it was based on, you know, the opry debut
that I had in two thousand and one, where you know,
I had gone out and sung a long black train
and got two standing ovations in an encore and just
(03:01):
you know, and I had just continued to come back
and play the Opry for you know, the next six
years pretty much pretty faithfully. And so they ended up
inducting me, and I was I was just super thrilled.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Man, Okay, I'm going to tell you something that's happening
in my life. Of course, this year's the one hundredth
anniversary of the grandele Opry. I got an email the
other day asking me to be a guest announcer on
the Opry.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Wow, there you go.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
No, but I'm nervous. I don't know what to do.
I'm nervous. I mean, you know, I've been in radio
for close to fifty years, but this is going to
be the most nerve racking thing that I've ever done,
and such an honor to do that, and I just
want to I don't know how to keep up with tradition.
I'm afraid I'm going to mess up.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
No, your instincts will take over once you get out there.
You know, they have, you know, a lot of stuff
written down for you, so that'll help out a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But hopefully about any big words or anything like that, Josh,
I could be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But the fans are always pretty forgiven. You know, they're
at the Opry, so it'll be fun.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
What led you to to Nashville. I knew that you
grew up in South Carolina, so what really? Why did
you choose Bellmont?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah? So it's funny, you know. I when I was thirteen,
I guess, you know, it was one really when I
started thinking about possibly being a country singer for a living.
And then when I was seventeen, that was when I
started playing guitar and writing songs and I was really
getting serious about it. But I still really didn't have
an idea of like how to go about it. But
(04:29):
there was a couple of things that happened. I went
to see Darryl Singletary and George Jones play at a
local venue there in South Carolina, and I got to
meet Darryl after the show and I asked him, you
know what kind of advice he could give me. He said,
move to where the music is. And so that told me, okay,
I need to get to Nashville. But I still didn't know, like,
(04:51):
you know, how does that work? You know, you just
go and show up. It's like, is there a place
you go to? But I had I had been dating
a girl when I was in tenth grade and she
was a part of a chorus at her high school.
And her chorus teacher said, hey, I hear you're interested
in country music. I said, just ma'am, and she said, well,
have you heard about Belmont University in Nashville And I
(05:13):
said no, and she said, well, they offer a commercial
music program, and I said really. And so the next
school day I was in my guidance counselor's office checking
it out, and sure enough, they had a commercial music program.
And to me, that just told me it's like, hey,
I can go major in country music. And so I
(05:34):
didn't really want to go to college, but my parents
were like, you got to go to college, and so
I went two years at home just to save money,
and then I ended up transferring to Belmont and you know,
starting you studied in that program for three years and
you know, just you know, nursing a vocal injury and
all kinds of stuff. But yeah, it paid off.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So I was going to ask you the vocal injury
happened when you were in college at Belmont, because a
lot of people don't know this. You you couldn't sing her.
You couldn't I mean, you couldn't even really talk or
whisper it for about a year. Right.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, it actually happened two years before I moved to Nashville.
And I was just devastated because I'm thinking I'm sitting
there thinking like, you know, it's over, like I'll never
I'll never be able to you know, pull this off.
But you know, luckily my doctor back home said, you
know what, if you're if you're planning on doing this
for a living, you need to go to the pros
And so he said, you need to go to the
(06:30):
Vanderbilt Voice Clinic. And so that's what I that's what
we did, and and luckily they you know, I get
in there and the head doctor, doctor Rosshoff, said, uh,
he said, you know, he said, we hear it the
Voice clinic. We believe that God does better healing than
we do. And so he didn't want to touch it.
He wanted to give me a year of vocal rest
(06:51):
and just working with a classical vocal coach and just
you know, doing all kinds of things to try to
rehabilitate and and it took years for me to get
over it, but I did, and I learned so much
about the voice and how to take care of it
and how to sing and just all of these healthy
habits and it's basically sustained me throughout my twenty plus
(07:12):
year career. So it was actually a blessing in disguise.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Wow, Now we know that your faith is very very
important to you also, it is.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
And you know, I've told people for my whole life
and career that, you know, every decision that I make
personally or professionally, you know, I have to run it
by the Lord and see, you know, if it's something
something that I need to do. And you know, and
I haven't always made the right decision, you know, but
I've tried to, and I've consulted Him and tried to
(07:41):
get advice from people that are older than me and
more experienced. And you know, I cite my heroes all
the time, and I talked about how much I've learned
from them, not only their successes, but their mistakes too.
I've tried to avoid certain pitfalls and different things. But yeah,
my faith plays a big part of that.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I just love that love that. I know if people
know this, but one of your one of your biggest hits,
Your Man, was co written by Chris Stapleton.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, you know that that song has just taken on
so many different, you know, lives, and it's just kind
of eve all throughout the years. It was my first
number one. My wife was in the video for it. Uh,
you know, and that that made a big splash. And
then Randy Travis and I did the CMT Cross Country Special,
and I watched the sales of that record just continue
(08:29):
to skyrocket. And then lo and behold, here comes Scotty
McCreery singing your Man on American Idol and it takes
off again. And and then Chris Tapleton, you know, becomes
an artist and becomes, you know, a superstar, and and
people find out that he was actually one of the
writers on that song. And and just like like I said,
just one thing after another just started taking off on
(08:51):
social media. And you know, so now the song itself
is actually four times platinum.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
The video has like two hundred and thirty two million
views or something crazy.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's unbelievable, unbelievable now, you know, I still think that
my perfect trio would be you, Bill Medley and Richard Sturbin.
Oh wow, you know, get the two of you, get
all three of you guys together. Man, that would be
a show right there, wouldn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Nobody would be able to understand what
we're saying.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
It would be great. Talk about long Black Train. Were
you told me a while back that you were inspired
by listening to the Hank Whim Senior box set. That's
that's really what inspired that.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah. Yeah, I've always been a big Hank fan, and
just when that that box that you know was released,
I was so disappointed because I was a poor, starving
college student and you know, at the time, that box
set was over two hundred dollars and I couldn't afford it.
So when I found out that the Belmont h University
(10:00):
Library had had basically acquired it and put and put
it on file in their library, I was the first
one over there to check it out. And so I
spent hours over there one night just listening to the song
after song after song, songs that had never been released before,
songs of just Hanking, his guitar, radio shows him talking,
you know, doing interviews and stuff. And just after being
(10:22):
in there late that night, just you know, listening to
all this stuff, I was it was like I was
transported back in time, and and so I was just
I was super inspired by all of this. And so
on my way back to my apartment that night, which
was on the opposite side of campus, I just I
had this vision come to me that basically, you know,
(10:45):
you know that I described in the song, and we
we tried to replicate it in the in the video
that I did, and like I say, the rest is history,
but it just I don't know, it was. It was definitely,
you know, got inspired and just I wrote three verses
in a chorus that night and then woke up the
(11:06):
next morning and I'm like, the song I ain't finished,
And so that afternoon I ended up writing the fourth verse.
And when I wrote that, I was like, Okay, it's done.
And it was just kind of funny because I was
working at our little you know, clubhouse where people get
their mail and stuff at our apartment complex, and a
friend of mine walked in right after I had finished
it and she said, hey, what are you working on.
(11:27):
I said, oh, I just wrote the song and she
said let me hear it. And I said, you won't
like it. She said, well, let me hear it anyway,
and I said, no, trust me, you won't like it.
She said, dang it, play it, and so I sat
down and played it for and she flipped out, and
then the snowball effect happened. She was like, you need
to play for this person that person, and I ended
up doing it and showcases and all this stuff and
doing a demo for it at school and that turned
(11:50):
into a publishing deal, and you know, that led to
a record deal and it was just like it was
just crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Hey, you never get tired of singing it, do you?
Speaker 2 (11:59):
No, Well, it's it holds a special place in my
heart because it was it was a song that got
my foot in the in the door. On top of that,
like it's it's influenced so many people for the better
that you know, it's just you know, I can't not
play it.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
That's one of the songs when you hear it on
the radio, you turn it up and you sing along.
It's just you just it's very catchy. It's very hooky,
and what a great composition. I'm glad that you that
you went and you checked out that library and you
actually you do sing a Hank Wim senior song though,
and you're set, though, don't you.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, you know, I've done a few Hank songs throughout
my career. I did one on my I did a
live album at the Rhyman for Cracker Barrel years and
years ago, and I did one cold I'll Never get
out of this World Alive and then I did you
know his version of I Saw or my version of
his song I Saw the Light on my first gospel record,
(12:54):
and even on my country State of Mind record, I
did a song of his, a very obscure song called
Alone and Forsaken, And so yeah, I've always been a big,
big hank with him, senior fan, and you know, he
had quite the repertoire for a twenty nine year old