David Nail

Country Music Spotlight: David Nail

Written on January 26, 2010 at 3:53 pm, by Ron Kelly

Warning: This post was written by a serious, card-carrying country music fan! (I’m fairly new to the Ladies’ Lounge, so you can check out my country cred below.)

For my money’s worth, David Nail’s I’m About to Come Alive was the most interesting and addictive CD to come out of Nashville last year. Maybe it was how much fun it is walking around NYC with “Again” or “Red Light” blasting out of my iPod. Or how “This Time Around” — with its chorus of “I’m a little bit older, a little more figured out”— helped me get over my ridiculous fear of turning the big 4-0 last August.

Well, when Nail visited NYC in December, I was thrilled to meet him for a few drinks and thank him for the lyrical gut check. The CD, after all, served as kind of my own personal soundtrack to my post birthday months of 2009, and it’s one of the few discs I continually replay from beginning to end. Nail walked me through how passionate he was about the CD’s sequencing, and how every version he toyed with started with the Ray Charles-inspired “Mississippi” and ended with the intensely personal “Missouri,” a breakup song so raw and honest (“Every day that you forgive me, is just another one you’ll waste”) that it literally stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it.

During our visit, David also gave me the inside track on what the CD’s third single (debuting on country radio this week) might be. If you haven’t heard it on your local radio yet, find out what it sounds like — and two random and amazing things we here at LHJ admire about this rising star — after the jump.

Crank up your radio and you’re sure to start hearing a lot of David’s “Turning Home” real soon. The song (penned by Kenny Chesney) hits country airwaves this week and, if justice prevails, it’ll continue to build on the success Nail’s last single, “Red Light,” earned him. “The moment I heard it, I knew it was the song not only that I’d been waiting to sing, but the theme for the record I wanted to make,” Nail tells me about “Turning Home,” a wistful tune that taps into everyone’s longing for their good ol’ hometown days. “No matter if you grew up in New York, Nashville, or even a small cotton farming town in southeast Missouri like where I grew up, there’s something in this lyric for you.”

So keep your ears open for the new track, and give the whole CD a good start-to-finish listen. (I wouldn’t steer your wrong.) In the meantime, here are two random things in addition to David’s music that we here at LHJ love about this guy:

1. Our fashion-forward staff totally digs his ability to rock a variety of awesome winter outerwear.

And, even more importantly, we’re inspired by his “Do Good” commitment to helping others. Nail is a huge supporter of the Payton Wright Foundation, a non-profit group named in honor of a 5-year-old girl who died from a rare form of brain cancer called medulloepithelioma. The organization supports pediatric cancer research and serves to financially assist families who have a child who is suffering. Nail’s first official thank you on his CD liner notes, in fact, reads, “Payton Wright, I never knew you, but I will spend the rest of my life making sure the world hears your story.” We’re honored to help him get the word out. Check out this video about one of the charity events that David’s performed at in support of Payton’s cause.