Scotty McCreery just celebrated a multi-week, No. 1 hit, with “Damn Strait,” but it could have been a hit for Chris Young instead. Young reveals that he was first pitched the song, a tribute to the King of Country Music, George Strait, written by Jim Collins and Trent Tomlinson. Unfortunately, Young wasn’t ready to record new music, and ultimately passed on the song.
“I know the writer of that song, and he pitched me that song first,” Young tells Lon Helton, on Country Countdown USA. “But I had just released my album and it was going to be a few years before I could record it. I told him to play it for everyone, because that song is a hit. I don’t think I’ve even told Scotty this. I told him I have no idea when the next single was going to come. This song was too good to sit on. He called me shortly after that to say ‘Scotty’s got it.’ And now it’s this huge No. 1 for them.”
Young currently has a Top 5 hit with “At the End Of A Bar,” his duet with Mitchell Tenpenny. The song, from Young’s latest Famous Friends album, is loosely based on a true story, of how the two now-friends initially met.
“We were just talking about how Mitchell and I met,” Young recalls. “I said Mitchell and I met at the end of a bar, and Mitchell said ‘That’s the song title. That’s the song we’re gonna write today.’”
Young recently released Famous Friends (Deluxe Edition), which features collaborations with Old Dominion, Cassadeee Pope and more.
“For all intents and purposes, it sort of is because there are 20 songs on this thing now. So that was fun for me,” Young said of the massive new project. “I was really glad that Sony wanted to expand upon what we had already done with the Famous Friends record, and keep it sort of evergreen for a little while.”
“At the End Of A Bar” comes on the heels of his No.1 collaboration with Kane Brown, on the project’s title track. With the release of the deluxe version of Famous Friends, Young hints there will likely be another song from the record.
“‘At the End of a Bar’ is the fourth single off of this record,” Young explained. “So being able to have more music to choose from, if we decided to go another single deep, whatever ‘At the End of a Bar’ does, or whatever we decide to do, there’s new music for the summer for everybody, and that was the thing that I wanted to do first and foremost.”
Music and tour dates can be found at ChrisYoungCountry.com.