A country way of life, Episode 17 (Brent Maher Evan Hutchings, Jerry Chesnut)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Producer: Brent Maher
In 2023, a year after Naomi Judd had committed suicide, a tribute album emerged to celebrate The Judds, the duo Naomi formed with her daughter Wynonna. The mastermind of the project was the duo’s longtime producer Brent Maher. He also wrote several of the Judds’ standards, among them Why Not Me, Girls Night Out, Born to Be Blue and Let Me Tell You About Love.
Maher started out as a recording engineer, and was in the studio when Tina Turner recorded the definitive version of Proud Mary. His bewilderingly vast array of credits includes Bobby Darin, Fats Domino, Kenny Rogers, Ray Charles, Sly & the Family Stone and Merle Haggard. Maher also helped out with engineering on Way Down, which became a posthumous UK number one for Elvis Presley. A Lesson in Leavin’, originally recorded by Dottie West and then revived by Jo Dee Messina, is another Maher copyright.
His more quirky projects included work with Bering Strait, a septet of Russian musicians who put out an album on Mercury in 2003. He also shepherded the career of Canadian act Johnny Reid, as well as helping many more songwriters via his Moraine Music Group, which he runs with his daughter Dianna. He told one interviewer that he went into the music business ‘because it was the only thing I thought I could be successful at’. What good luck that he was correct.
Player: Evan Hutchings
In the Country Updates that Billboard magazine produce twice weekly, there is always a piece on the story behind a recently released country song, including inspiration behind it and its composition. Then comes a list of session musicians who take the demo and make it a hit, layering guitar, bass, pedal steel and drums.
For the last of these layers, it is common to see the name Evan Hutchings, who started playing percussion in Arkansas at the age of eight and moved to Nashville for college. The chances are almost certain that you will have heard one of his drum tracks, usually on songs that have gone to country radio.
Hutchings has credits on Country’d Look Good On You by Frank Ray, Just the Way by Parmalee, One Margarita by Luke Bryan and We Didn’t Have Much by Justin Moore. He also contributed to albums by (deep breath): Jason Aldean, Kelsea Ballerini, Kenny Chesney, Mickey Guyton, Sam Hunt, Randall King, Maddie & Tae, Parker McCollum, Midland, Carly Pearce, Rascal Flatts, Josh Turner and Keith Urban.
As with many other session musicians, at EvanHutchings.com musicians can buy packs of drum samples, loops and effects with the imprimatur of a pro.
Songwriter: Jerry Chesnut
Born in Kentucky in 1931, Jerry Chesnut moved to Nashville in the late 1950s. His copyrights will outlast us all: Good Year for the Roses, a hit for George Jones which Elvis Costello also recorded; It’s Four in the Morning, a UK hit for Faron Young; and T.R.O.U.B.L.E, which Travis Tritt took into the charts with a magnificent version and which he also performed at the 1994 Superbowl Half-Time Show.
When asked how he had come up with the idea for the last of those songs, Chesnut said, ‘It just happened!’ If only it were that simple every time. Elvis’s fellow rockabilly star Jerry Lee Lewis also took one of his songs (Another Place, Another Time) into the country charts.
When Chesnut died in 2018, the New York Times said he wrote ‘blue-collar hits’ and had ‘a gift for illuminating the struggles of working people’. This was true of Oney, a song cut by Johnny Cash, and Holdin’ On to Nothin, which Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton took into the top ten. A Dime at a Time, recorded by Del Reeves, took as its subject a man who feeds his last two dollars into a jukebox.
All Episodes can be found here
For more country music evangelism, go to countrywol.com where you can read Monday essays, Friday reviews and Sunday Hymn Sheets. Follow Jonny’s Country Music Calendar at the Country Way of Life Facebook page (facebook.com/acountrywayoflife).