A country way of life, Episode 16 (Zach Crowell, Brent Mason, Pat Alger)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Producer: Zach Crowell
One of the key architects of the sound of contemporary country music is Zach Crowell. He made his name with his work at the intersection of pop and country, particularly with two acts: Sam Hunt, whose first album he co-produced then struck gold with the massive Hot 100 hit Body Like A Back Road; and Dustin Lynch, with whom Crowell has worked since he wrote Hell of a Night and Where It’s At. He has produced Lynch’s last three albums, which include the long-running country chart-topper Thinking Bout You.
Crowell also worked on albums by Cole Swindell, Jelly Roll and Chris Janson, where you can hear his patented hyperactive backing tracks full of gang vocals and quirky production choices. He also has credits on songs by Scotty McCreery (See You Tonight), Carrie Underwood (Church Bells and Dirty Laundry) and Keith Urban, who took Sam Hunt’s song Cop Car into the charts.
Player: Brent Mason
Brent Mason is one of the most acclaimed session musicians in Nashville. Born in Ohio, he taught himself to play guitar at the age of five and was spotted by the great Chet Atkins after he moved to Music City. He put out an instrumental album in 1997 on Mercury Records but, aside from independently releasing a follow-up in 2006, he has become a studio cat, producing albums for other musicians and playing on hundreds upon hundreds of recordings.
You can hear Brent’s playing on Shania Twain’s Come On Over, where he takes the guitar solo on That Don’t Impress Me Much, and on the late-period releases by George Strait including on the songs Give It Away and Give It All We Got Tonight. He also played on Faith Hill’s hits Breathe and This Kiss, Easton Corbin’s smash All Over The Road, John Michael Montgomery’s wedding song I Swear, Joe Diffie’s career song Pickup Man, and the Randy Travis standard Forever and Ever Amen.
Alan Jackson, whose music Mason described as a mix of ‘Bakersfield and Cajun’, used him on many of his biggest smashes including It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, Don’t Rock the Jukebox and Chattahoochee, while he enhanced Brooks & Dunn’s classic songs Neon Moon, My Maria and Boot Scootin’ Boogie with his trademark playing.
Mason won the CMA Musician of the Year award in both 1997 and 1998, although he has been on the ballot 20 times in total in a 30-year span; he has had more luck at the ACM awards, where he has been Guitarist of the Year on 12 occasions.
If you go to Mason’s website, a pop-up window appears offering you a choice to either have a one-on-one guitar lesson over Skype or for him to overdub his parts on to your own song. He might well be using his personalised ’67 Fender Telecaster, which has an additional control knob for extra twang; indeed Mason is attending a Masters of the Telecaster guitar camp in the fall of 2024.
Songwriter: Pat Alger
Pat Alger was born in New York but grew up in Georgia, becoming involved in the Atlanta folk scene before moving back East to write and record music in Woodstock, upstate New York. His songs were picked up by Nashville stars like Mickey Gilley and Kathy Mattea, and Hal Ketchum and Trisha Yearwood had hits with Small Town Saturday Night and Like We Never Had a Broken Heart respectively.
Garth Brooks famously recorded four Alger compositions: Unanswered Prayers, The Thunder Rolls, What She’s Doing Now and That Summer. As a performer himself, Alger put out four albums of folk songs, although he has spent the last decade teaching songwriting at Belmont University and continuing his activism for his fellow songwriters.
All Episodes can be found here
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