A country way of life, Episode 38 (Terry McMillan, Tully Kennedy and Neil Thrasher)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Terry McMillan
Born in North Carolina, Terry McMillan started out as a drummer, contributing to recordings by Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Wynonna, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. He also toured with Amy Grant and played drums behind Neil Young at Live Aid in 1985.
McMillan’s best-known moment on record, though, came with his harmonica playing, when he was given multiple spots to shine on Ain’t Goin Down (Til the Sun Comes Up) by Garth Brooks. Chet Atkins had hired him when McMillan was still a teenager.
By the time he died in 2007, McMillan had become a performer of Christian and inspirational music.
Songwriters: Tully Kennedy and Neil Thrasher
Certain artists rely on key songwriting buddies to refine their sound, the most famous example being George Strait singing songs written by Dean Dillon. If you glance at the credits of Jason Aldean’s dozen or so albums, you will see the names Tully Kennedy and Neil Thrasher.
The pair enjoyed a US Hot 100 number one in 2023 when Try That in a Small Town rode a wave of virality when its music video was subjected to polarised debate. Kennedy said the song, a modern update of the Hank Williams Jr anthem Country Boy Can Survive, was about ‘trying to fix the things that we thought were messed up…It’s just how we grew up. We’ve got each other’s back.’
Thrasher reckoned that Aldean was the ‘one artist on the planet that would even consider putting it out or cutting it’. Try That in a Small Town was one of four tracks the pair had collaborated on for the song’s parent album Highway Desperado, the others being Rather Watch You, Tough Crowd and Hungover in a Hotel.
Thrasher had been part of Aldean’s camp since 2009, where he contributed songs to his album Wide Open. His co-writes soon became radio smashes: Tattoos on This Town, Fly Over States, Rearview Town and Night Train, which was one of eight Thrasher cuts on the album of the same name.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, he had been part of the duo Thrasher Silver in the mid-1990s but headed to the backroom to write songs cut by Reba McEntire (What Do You Say), Kenny Chesney (There Goes My Life), Randy Houser (How Country Feels) and Rascal Flatts (Fast Cars and Freedom).
Kennedy, meanwhile, had grown up in Redford, a small town in New York state where he had played bass in rock bands. Intending to head out to LA, he was waylaid in Nashville where he fell in with Aldean’s producer Michael Knox.
Kennedy thus became the bassist in his band, bringing his rock’n’roll schooling to the Aldean’s muscular country music; the singer called Kennedy ‘the first friend’ he met in Nashville. ‘Being a studio musician here is challenging,’ Kennedy said. ‘You don’t spend two days on a song; you’ve got a half-hour. You’ve got to be able to go in and come out with a great rhythm section in two or three takes.’
Kennedy’s first song on an Aldean record was In Case You Don’t Remember, from 2016’s They Don’t Know. He also co-wrote Blame It on You, That’s What Tequila Does, If I Didn’t Love You and Trouble with a Heartbreak, all of which were sent to radio.
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).