Ketch Secor
Kit Wood*Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor is in discussions to present Hooten Holler at a regional theater in February 2022; Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley owns a production company developing May We All, a musical featuring over two dozen country hits that will premiere at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in June 2022; songwriter Marcus Hummon (“Bless the Broken Road," “Born To Fly") co-wrote American Prophet, a musical about civil-rights pioneer Frederick Douglass that is headed to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., July 15-Aug. 28, 2022; songwriter-producer Wayne Kirkpatrick (“Boondocks," “Little White Church") co-wrote the songs for the musical Mrs. Doubtfire, which begins previews at Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre on Oct. 21; and Kirkpatrick is also working with former Opry Entertainment president Steve Buchanan to develop a production that centers on Nashville’s Bluebird Café. Additionally, Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles covers Broadway tunes on her new album, Always Like New.
Sugarland’s Kristian Bush ups the theatrical ante even further: He wrote the music and co-wrote the lyrics to Darlin’ Cory, a production that runs at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre Sept. 8-Oct. 3, and worked on a musical about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that will likely debut in Miami in February. Bush is also releasing an album of the songs from the 2017 musical Troubadour — featuring Kristian and Brandon Bush, Levi Lowry and Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr, among others — on Sept. 3. The first single, “Hunt Dog Hunt," arrives Aug. 13.
“Songs do a beautiful, magical thing," says Kristian Bush, comparing musicals to traditional country platforms. “The theater honors that in a different way, but to me, it’s the exact same magic that happens when I hear something on the radio and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God. My whole life just changed right now.’ "
Country and the theater have had some history: Country Music Hall of Fame member Tex Ritter and K.T. Oslin, for example, appeared on Broadway prior to becoming country stars, while Gary Morris picked up roles in La Boheme and Les Miserables concurrent with his 1980s hits, and Roger Miller was lauded for his work on 1985’s Tony Award-winning Big River.
Still, the interplay between the genres has picked up since the turn of the century, beginning with Reba McEntire’s appearance in a Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. Songwriter Don Schlitz (“The Gambler," “On the Other Hand") provided music for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Billy Ray Cyrus and Nettles had roles in a production of Chicago; songwriter Mike Reid (“Stranger in My House," “I Can’t Make You Love Me") launched his second musical, Ballad of Little Jo; and Steve Earle has contributed to several productions, including Coal Country, an off-Broadway production cut short by the pandemic.
Productions featuring the music of Elvis Presley, Urban Cowboy, Sun Records, Dolly Parton and Jimmy Buffett have likewise been part of a bigger trend in which nontraditional music has appeared on Broadway, such as rap in Hamilton and rock in Rock of Ages. In the process, the theatrical world is increasingly recognizing Nashville’s Music Row as the new version of Tin Pan Alley.
“People are more likely to acknowledge [country] as being more mass appeal and more mainstream," says Buchanan, noting its progress from old stereotypes. “And they’re acknowledging that there is a greater sophistication to the songs that are being written here."
Buchanan has firsthand experience. He was a producer for Moonshine: That Hee Haw Musical, which debuted in Dallas in 2015 with songs by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally.
“One of the things that was really fascinating for some of our creative team was just how prolific and how quickly Shane and Brandy could turn around a great song," says Buchanan.
Writing new material daily is not a big change from the way songwriting works on Music Row, except that theatrical songs are written for a specific vehicle that is actually more difficult to bring to market than an album.
“This is much more of a molasses drip of patience," says Secor.
Part of the attraction is that the end result has a cultural resonance that potentially lasts for decades and reaches across multiple demographics. Most Americans are familiar with at least some, if not all, of the songs in The Sound of Music and West Side Story. But, as with writing for mainstream country, there are no guarantees.
“You can very easily spend four or five years working on a musical, then it’s released, and then it closes in two months," says Kirkpatrick. “So it’s all a gamble."
No matter what you thought of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, there was only one undisputed winner by the end of it all: the reaction community in the worlds of streaming and YouTube. Your favorite content creators broke down the bars, reacted to all the most shocking moments, and helped this showdown become one of hip-hop's most culturally significant and resonant moments in a long time... For better or worse. See, the battle's technically not over yet, but only because the 6ix God's idea of victory is clearly quite different. In his federal defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – his label – for releasing K.Dot's "Not Like Us," he named various content creators who allegedly helped boost the track's widespread popularity and, as a result, its supposedly defamatory nature.
Furthermore, the specific allegation that Drake brings up in this highly controversial lawsuit is that UMG "whitelisted" copyright claims for YouTubers, streamers, etc. concerning "Not Like Us." This means that they would be able to monetize their content without facing a copyright claim from UMG over "Not Like Us," and this isn't really an allegation because various creators have backed this up. But a few important (alleged) caveats that people are talking about online need to be clear. First, "whitelisting" supposedly happens on behalf of a record label behind a song like the West Coast banger, and UMG is instead the distributor of that track. Secondly, as rapper and online personality ScruFaceJean brings up as seen in the post below, tracks like "Push Ups" were also "whitelisted" by its team.
Along with Jean, many other of your favorite content creators spoke out against this Drake lawsuit. Zias! and B.Lou, for example, spoke with their lawyer about the possibility of countersuing for emotional distress, as they found the Toronto superstar's accusations and his implication of them very disturbing and misguided. NoLifeShaq also dragged The Boy through the mud, calling him "soft" and positing that, whether "whitelisting" happened or not, they would react to "Not Like Us" accordingly as they did to his own tracks.
In addition, it's important to bring up that many others fans have pointed to how Drake excitedly used streamers to generate hype and reaction clips for his own diss tracks against Kendrick Lamar. The most direct example is with Kai Cenat, whom he texted to "stay on stream" before dropping "Family Matters." Ironically, the Twitch giant appears in this clowned-upon defamation lawsuit as an example of what the OVO mogul's accusations and implications are. And one more thing: there is no direct link between monetization and algorithmic boosting on sites like YouTube. With all this in mind, content creators seem to feel almost insulted at the idea that they only reacted to the two biggest rappers in the world beefing with each other because one of them would allow them to make money. If Drizzy knew the first thing about the reaction community, maybe he wouldn't have included this...