The Songwriter Tapes: Luke Laid, Lori McKenna, and Barry Dean
Bio
The Songwriter Tapes: A collaboration from Lori McKenna, Luke Laird and Barry Dean that brings the treasured Nashville Writers’ Round to life for listeners.
When you put three of Nashville’s most prolific songwriters in a room, magic happens.
What started in a group text between Luke Laird, Barry Dean and Lori McKenna is now an idea that the Creative Nation trio has brought to life. The Songwriter Tapes features brand new recordings of the hitmakers singing the songs they penned for country artists that went on to climb to the top of the charts and win Grammys, ACM Awards and CMA Awards along with three new unreleased songs.
“Any time one of us is singing a song that an artist turned into an extraordinary piece of music, you’re forced to be vulnerable and say: this is me doing the best I can with this song that I helped write,” McKenna says of the new project. “You’re telling listeners, ‘Here’s how it started when I was sitting on the couch in the living room.’ Even if a song has evolved, there’s still a piece of that beginning, before the artist even heard it.”
Choosing the four songs for each of the songwriters to sing was a collaborative process. And while it may have been difficult to narrow it down to 12 tracks after more than 65 collective years in country music, the result is a timeless anthology of career-defining songs from as far back as 2004 and as recent as 2020.
But as always, it all starts with a song and a songwriter. “I’ve always been a huge fan of songwriters. When I first moved to Nashville, one of my favorite things to do was go to the Bluebird Cafe and watch my heroes sing the hit songs in their rawest form. Two of my all-time favorite songwriters and now two of my best friends are Barry and Lori,” Laird says. “They both have such a pure, honest way of delivering a melody and lyric. I’m so grateful to get to be a part of this project with them.”
And according to Dean, he would’ve agreed to this project just to spend time around Laird and McKenna. “Just to marvel at the way they interpret their songs. I’m constantly amazed by how they make the songs new each time they sing them,” he says, citing Laird’s knack for creating a beatbox feel with his breathing as one of his signature styles. “They’re on so many of his hits, but most people don’t notice it. But when we’re writing, they form the feel.”
“When you’re singing with Lori, her phrasing is unlike anybody else. So you end up going on a journey with her. We all know her songs, but when she’s the one delivering them,” Dean adds, “it’s just barrel strength Lori McKenna. It’s the closest you can get to when she’s writing them.”
The mutual respect that Laird, Dean and McKenna have for one another comes through loud and clear on every song. “We love each other. We root for each other. So to be able to share these songs in this way was like going to a dinner party and talking about your favorite things,” McKenna explains. “When Luke sings ‘So Small,’ it’s a different song from Carrie Underwood’s version. And when Barry does ‘Diamond Rings and Old Barstools,’ he sings it with his entire heart and every piece of guts he has in his body.”
The way the songwriter sings a song, McKenna maintains, is one of the best ways to hear a song. “I’m never going to be able to sing ‘Girl Crush’ like Karen Fairchild (Little Big Town), but people respect getting to hear a different perspective on a song they know.”
It’s those perspectives that have earned Dean, Laird and McKenna a place at the head of the Nashville table of treasured songsmiths.
Dean has been hard at work in Nashville after pivoting from his official 9-to-5 day job to songwriting full time in his mid-30s. Almost instantly, he had his name in parentheses next to Martina McBride’s on “God’s Will” and Reba McEntire’s on “Moving Oleta”. Now, after 20 years, he has over 100 cuts from artists like Alison Krauss, Maren Morris, Thomas Rhett, Meatloaf and Eric Church. Dean’s No. 1 songs include Jon Pardi’s “Heartache Medication”, Michael Ray’s “Think A Little Less” and Little Big Town’s Grammy-winning “Pontoon”. He also received a BMI Pop award for Ingrid Michaelson’s “Girls Chase Boys.”
Laird, who moved to Nashville more than 25 years ago, has racked up the kind of numbers that are hard to comprehend: 52 radio singles, 24 No. 1 hits, and more than 125 cuts to his name. He was the ACM’s songwriter of the year in 2015, and BMI’s songwriter of the year in 2012. His first cut by a country artist was Lee Ann Womack’s “Painless,” from her 2005 album, not too long after he’d graduated from college.
McKenna’s story started almost 20 years ago, when Faith Hill discovered her music and decided to put a couple of the singer-songwriter’s songs on her 2005 Fireflies album. McKenna has since become the go-to songwriter, known for her penchant for honest and epic themes. She won two consecutive Grammys – for “Girl Crush” and “Humble and Kind” – and she made history in 2016 when she was crowned the first female songwriter of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards.
“Everyone who sings a song, no matter who wrote it, will make it their own. So our versions of these songs are just the ones that’ve settled into our bones,” McKenna says. The upshot of that is a full album of songs you’ve known for years that somehow sound brand new again.
Luke Laird and his wife Beth founded Creative Nation in Nashville in 2011, with the idea that quality should always outweigh quantity and that no two musical minds are exactly the same. Through publishing, management, artist development and records, they serve songwriters and artists in ways that support their unique visions. Creative Nation is the one place in Nashville where creativity thrives from the pen all the way to the fans.
BARRY DEAN
Barry Dean takes nothing for granted. Even after earning a Grammy nod and topping charts, he remains awestruck each time he hears a song he wrote on the radio. Dean still can’t help but think of how he seemed destined to work a 9-to-5 in Kansas––a fate that now seems preposterous, given his track record: two No. 1 singles for Little Big Town, “Pontoon” and “Day Drinkin’”; “Think a Little Less,” which topped charts for Michael Ray; “Heartache Medication” which hit #1 with Jon Pardi; Ingrid Michaelson’s Top 40 smash “Girls Chase Boys”; and an ever-growing list of multi-genre successes prove Dean is doing exactly what he was made to do.
2016 took Dean to another level. He co-wrote Tim McGraw’s Top 5 radio hit, “Diamond Rings and Old Barstools” which garnered him his first Grammy nomination and a coveted “Songs I Wish I’d Written” NSAI award. The runaway success of Ingrid Michaelson’s “Girls Chase Boys” marked Barry’s first single on the pop charts and his first BMI Pop Award in 2015––the song ultimately landed at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot AC and No. 21 on the Top 40 charts. Dean also co-penned Michaelson’s Hot AC hit “Hell No”; Jordan Rager’s “Southern Boy” featuring Jason Aldean; “Yesterday’s Song” from Hunter Hayes; and David Nail’s “Good at Tonight.”
2017 ushered in more of the same. He penned four songs that made their way onto Steve Moakler’s album Steel Town: chart-climber “Suitcase,” “Just Long Enough,” “Siddle’s Saloon,” and “Hearts Don’t Break That Way.” Little Big Town also recorded “Free,” which Dean co-wrote, and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill recorded “Damn Good At Holding On,” which Dean co-wrote with Lori McKenna.
2019 brought the title track of Luke Combs’ highly anticipated second album, “What You See Is What You Get,” along with the memorable “God And Country Music” on George Strait’s Honky Tonk Time Machine, and 2020 brought “You Don’t Get To” on Kenny Chesney’s Here and Now.
With a catalog that also includes singles “God’s Will” (Martina McBride), “Drinks After Work” (Toby Keith), “1994” (Jason Aldean), “Tattoo” (Hunter Hayes), “Rum” (Brothers Osborne), “On to Something Good” (Ashley Monroe), “By The Way” (Lindsay Ell), Steve Moakler’s debut single “Suitcase,” and Tenille Townes’ “Somebody’s Daughter,” Dean has earned a reputation for writing gems that are both radio-ready and smart. George Strait, Carrie Underwood, BORNS, Jon Pardi, Kenny Chesney, Alison Krauss, Reba McEntire, Blake Shelton, Thomas Rhett, Maren Morris, Brett Eldredge, Jake Owen, Billy Currington, Hunter Hayes, Devin Dawson, LeAnn Rimes, Brothers Osborne, and others have also all recorded his songs.
LORI MCKENNA
Over the last three decades, as she became a wife and mother of five, she has also emerged as one of the most respected, prolific singer-songwriters in popular music. On her latest release, The Balladeer, Lori McKenna is offering her most uplifting and up-tempo album in a catalog that spans 20 years. Produced by GRAMMY award winning Dave Cobb and recorded in Nashville’s historic Studio A, The Balladeer follows an incredible stretch of career momentum, including two consecutive Grammy wins as a songwriter for Best Country Song: Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” and Tim McGraw’s “Humble and Kind.” She made history in 2016 by becoming the Academy of Country Music’s first female Songwriter of the year and in 2017 she became the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award two years in a row. Yet her success doesn’t stop there. McKenna co-wrote “Always Remember Us This Way,” which was featured in the Academy Award-winning 2018 film, A Star Is Born. In 2021, Taylor Swift released her second re-recorded album Red (Taylor’s version) including a song called “I Bet You Think About Me” featuring Chris Stapleton and written by Swift and McKenna. McKenna continues to enjoy tremendous success as one of the music industry’s most in-demand songwriters. Her reoccurring theme of family builds a tapestry of experiences she has loved and overheard, been told and dreamed up, to create a stunning ode to life’s defining relationships.
LUKE LAIRD
Ferocious talent, wit, and sincere humility rarely come together like they do in Grammy winner Luke Laird. Since moving to Nashville from a small farming town in Pennsylvania, Laird has become one of country and pop’s top songwriters and producers. The numbers are staggering: 52 radio singles –– 24 of which were Billboard No. 1 hits and 5 of which were in the Top 5 –– 2 Billboard No. 1 singles as a producer, and more than 125 released cuts fill his catalog. In four separate years, every single released that Laird wrote peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard charts. He earned ACM Songwriter of the Year honors in 2015, and was named BMI Songwriter of the Year in 2012.
As a producer, Laird has helped shape some of music’s most critically acclaimed projects of the last decade. He co-produced Kacey Musgraves 2013 debut, Same Trailer, Different Park, which garnered Grammy honors for Best Country Album and an ACM Album of the Year win. In 2015, he returned to the studio with Musgraves to co-produce her triumphant sophomore release, Pageant Material. Laird earned his second Grammy for Best Country Song with Musgraves’ “Space Cowboy” in 2019.
A slew of Grammy, ACM, CMA, and other nominations line Laird’s resume, which also includes six CMA Triple Play Awards, four NSAI “Songs I Wish I’d Written” Awards, the 2012 BMI Country Song of the Year trophy for Rodney Atkins’ “Take a Back Road,” and more. His list of No. 1 singles reads like a carefully curated playlist of soulful contemporary country: “Hard To Forget” (Sam Hunt); “Fast” and “I See You” (Luke Bryan); “Head Over Boots” (Jon Pardi); “T-Shirt” (Thomas Rhett); “Gonna” and “Hillbilly Bone” (Blake Shelton); “Talladega,” “Give Me Back My Hometown,” and “Drink In My Hand” (Eric Church); “American Kids” (Kenny Chesney); “Sunshine & Whiskey” (Frankie Ballard); “One of Those Nights” (Tim McGraw); “Downtown” (Lady Antebellum); “Somebody’s Heartbreak” (Hunter Hayes); “Beat This Summer” (Brad Paisley); “Pontoon” (Little Big Town); “You” (Chris Young); “A Little Bit Stronger” (Sara Evans); “Take A Back Road” (Rodney Atkins); and “Temporary Home,” “Undo It,” “So Small,” and “Last Name” (Carrie Underwood).
Other artists who have recorded Laird-penned songs represent a jaw-dropping grab bag of genres: George Strait, Maren Morris, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Brandy Clark, Toby Keith, Jake Owen, Steve Moakler, Sister Hazel, Ingrid Michaelson, Ashley Monroe, Sam Hunt, Angaleena Presley, Nikki Lane, Darius Rucker, Jason Aldean, Sheryl Crow, Brett Eldredge, Florida Georgia Line, Ne-Yo, Neal McCoy, Amy Grant, and many more.
Today, Laird writes for and co-owns Nashville-based publishing and management company Creative Nation with his wife, Beth.
