Country singer Billy Currington | News, Sports, Jobs
Country star Billy Currington loves Maui. He loves our island so much he once halted his successful music career to live here for a year.
“When I first went to Maui, I was only going to be there for three weeks,” he explains. “Within the first week, I called my manager in Nashville and said, ‘I’m not coming back home.’ I had a coffee at Grandma’s (in Koekea) and that’s when I got on the phone and said, ‘I’m not coming back and I don’t know what to tell you about the music career.’ I had already had some good success and No. 1s on the radio, but the power of Maui was so strong for me that I made a decision to stay and live there.
“So I moved to Kula, and I lived in Paia and ended up living in a bamboo house in Haiku for six months. But I missed making music so much it brought me back to the Mainland. Now every year I come to Maui for about three months, then I get to go and make music, and I can’t wait to get there and play music for the first time in my favorite place in the world.”
Currington recently scored his 10th No. 1 single with “Don’t It,” topping the Billboard Country Airplay chart. The catchy hit, from his latest album, “Summer Forever,” was composed by Nashville hit-makers Ashley Gorley, Jaren Johnston and Ross Copperman.
“We put the word out we were looking for songs for my sixth album, and a buddy of mine said, ‘I’ve got the first single,'” Currington says. “We were excited. A song like that with a positive message doesn’t come along very often. We’re very thankful when No. 1s happen.”
Reviewing Currington’s “Summer Forever” album, Country Music Chat noted: “While admitting that he loves sad songs as much as anyone, the singer has made a name for himself with songs that simply make you smile and feel good. For his sixth studio album, he has put together a winning collection of songs that should very well make your summer soundtrack.”
“I knew I wanted to put a 10- to 12-song album together that was very positive and had a happy feel,” he continues. “No matter where you were, whether on the beach or in your car or at night in your house, you could put the album on and it would make you feel some sense of happiness. I told all the people who had sent me songs in the past, ‘Please, no sad songs.’ That was my only thought, and I knew the right songs would come.”
Along with the title tune and the No. 1 single, the album’s highlights include a soulful duet with Jesse James Decker on “Good Night.”
“There are a lot of people I would love to do duets with,” he says. “I met her when she was 17 standing in an autograph line and she said, ‘I’m Jesse James and one day I’m going to open up for you.’ I laughed, and of course the first time I heard her sing I was blown away. I always said I wanted to do a duet with Jesse, and that’s the reason she ended up on that song. I think she did an excellent job.”
Growing up listening to country legends like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kenny Rogers, the Georgia-born entertainer had imagined a football career before making a name with music.
“During my high school years, I started finding out I could carry a tune enough to make people smile,” he recalls. “But I had my mind set to play football in college and the NFL. I was good at it and then at the end of my junior year my coach came up to me and said, ‘Billy, you didn’t make the grade. You can’t play football in your senior year.’ My heart was broken, but I bought a guitar in a pawn shop, and I met a preacher who encouraged me to move to Nashville.”
Signed to a Nashville record label, his first single, the powerful “Walk a Little Straighter,” was released in 2003. Drawing on Currington’s experiences with an alcoholic step-father, the song still resonates with audiences today, with heartbreaking comments routinely posted on YouTube.
“I wrote a lot of that song when I was a little kid,” he says. It was like a poem. I didn’t even know what song writing was at that point. Years later living in Nashville, I was writing with a couple of buddies and said, ‘I’ve got this old poem,’ and I sang it to them, and we wrote the rest of the song.”
Since the release of his self-titled debut album, his No. 1 singles have included such memorable hits as “Good Directions,” “Let Me Down Easy,” “Must Be Doin’ Something Right,” “People Are Crazy,” and “That’s How Country Boys Roll.”
Over the years, he has won the Hottest Video of the Year at the CMT Music Awards for “Must Be Doin’ Somethin’ Right” in 2006. His hit duet with Shania Twain, “Party For Two,” earned nominations from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. One of his biggest hits, “People Are Crazy,” earned Grammy nominations for Male Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song, in addition to being nominated for Single and Song of the Year from the ACM, as well as Single, Song and Video of the Year from the CMA.
In 2013, he released the “We Are Tonight” album, which featured a duet with one of his idols, Nelson, on the lively, steel guitar-driven track “Hard to Be a Hippie.”
“I was listening to Willie Nelson before I was born,” he says. “It was such a blessing that I got to do a duet with him. I heard he spent a lot of time on Maui so I went to see him at Charley’s one night. I knew I had to figure out a way to do a duet with him. A dream came true when we sang together.”
A popular artist, who as Country Weekly notes “is a skilled interpreter of songs with a knack for finding the soul in every selection,” Currington feels blessed that he can move people.
“Even the slow love songs, people write stuff or come up to you and go, ‘That was our wedding song,’ or ‘That song changed our lives, that’s how we met.’ It always makes you feel special inside.”
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Tickets are now on sale to Maui Arts & Cultural Center members for its Ho’onanea Concert Series. The series will feature ukulele star Jake Shimabukuro on Dec. 11, the return of the Rough Riders – Henry Kapono, John Cruz and Brother Noland – on Jan. 8 and multi-Na Hoku Award-winning musician/kumu hula Keali’i Reichel with “Kukahi 2016” on Feb. 13 and 14. Tickets will go on sale to the general public Oct. 23.
* For more information, visit the box office, call 242-7469 or by visit www.mauiarts.org.
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The annual Lahaina Plantation Days festival at the old Pioneer Mill site on Lahainaluna Road will feature some great entertainment. Friday evening will include Willie K, Ekolu, and Ikaika Blackburn and Leohone. And on Saturday, Melveen Leed, Amy Hanai’ali’i, Napua Greig and the Zenshin Daiko drummers will perform.
* The event takes place from 5 to 10:30 p.m. each night. Admission is $5, and kids 5 years and younger get in for free. For more information, visit www.lahainarestoration.org.
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The Shops at Wailea will present a free concert with multi Na Hoku award-winning musician and kumu hula Robert Cazimero from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the fountain courtyard.
* For more information, visit www.theshopsatwailea.com.
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The Maui Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of Robert E. Wills, will kick off its 2015-16 season with a concert featuring guest trumpet soloist Pam Humphrey on Saturday and Sunday at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku.
Opening with Franz Josef Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, one of the first works created for the newly developed key trumpet, the program will feature Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella Suite” and Bach’s Baroque masterpiece “Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.” The concert will close with Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D, commonly known as the “Haffner.”
Humphrey, who earned a master’s in trumpet performance from the University of Minnesota, has played with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera and the Minneapolis Pops Orchestra.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday. Maestro Wills will offer his free “Conversation’s with the Conductor” at 1:30 p.m. prior to the concert Sunday.
* Tickets are available at www.mauichamberorchestra.org. The orchestra is also currently seeking fundraising of $300,000 for its four-concert season. Donations may be made to the Maui Chamber Orchestra, 111 Poailani Place, Wailea, HI 96753.
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Winners of the grand prize at the 2009 Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, the Zemlinsky Quartet will make its Maui debut at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Castle Theater at the MACC.
Founded in 1994, the quartet comprises Frantisek Soucek (first violin), Petr Strizek (second violin), Petr Holman (viola) and Vladimir Fortin (cello). With a repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary works, they have been lauded as an example of the Czech string quartet tradition.
* Tickets are $35 (plus applicable fees) and are available at the box office, by calling 242-7469 or by visiting www.mauiarts.org.
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