A country way of life, Episode 44 (Danny Rader, Jon Nite & Wendell Mobley)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Danny Rader
In football, managers often appreciate utility men who can play across the pitch. Likewise, guitarist Danny Rader is a man of many instruments, whether string (mandolin, banjo, bouzouki), keyboard (organ, accordion) or blown (harmonica, melodica) or hit (drumkit).
Rader was part of a family band who entertained guests at The Ocean Opry in his home of Panama City, Florida. When he moved to Nashville in the mid-2000s, he was thus a perfect hire for any number of country musicians needing a versatile player in their band, including LeAnn Rimes, Gretchen Wilson and Jason Aldean.
After a decade standing next to Keith Urban playing rhythm guitar, today he does the same for Kenny Chesney where, he told one interviewer, ’98 per cent of my interaction with the fanbase is through the video screens’. Rader plays the signature ganjo riff of Chesney’s American Kids as well as the solo section, where the first take was used.
With producers calling him in for sessions when he wasn’t out on the road, Rader has played on over 50 number one songs, mainly adding acoustic instruments to the tracks. He can be heard in the mix of Somewhere on a Beach by Dierks Bentley, My Kinda Party by Jason Aldean and Dirt Road Anthem, the hit for Aldean and Colt Ford.
Rader also takes charge of the band who play at the CMA Awards and the CMA Country Christmas shows, and he helped produce the Stone Cold Country tribute to the Rolling Stones which came out in 2023.
Songwriters: Jon Nite and Wendell Mobley
The work of Jon Nite and Wendell Mobley was brought together on the Music City Hit-Makers live show, which added an orchestra to some of the pair’s copyrights.
Nite, who was born in Amarillo, Texas, was a teenage father and husband who took his family to Nashville, where he says he could still be poor but ‘at least be close to something that potentially I could have a dream at’. The biggest of all his copyrights is I Hope, written with and for Gabby Barrett; it enjoyed an absurdly long run at the top of the Hot Country during the Covid-19 pandemic and, helped by a duet with Charlie Puth, it became the third biggest song in America.
His songs have been cut by Kenny Chesney (Noise), Lee Brice (Boy) and Dierks Bentley (Tip It On Back). Aside from I Hope Nite has had over a dozen songs hit number one: they include Whatever She’s Got for David Nail, Strip It Down for Luke Bryan, Smoke for A Thousand Horses, Break On Me for Keith Urban and Dancin’ in the Country for Tyler Hubbard. Many of these were written with his fellow backroom boys Ross Copperman or Jimmy Robbins.
You can hear Nite’s versions of Beachin’ and Break Up In The End, respective chart-toppers for Jake Owen and Cole Swindell, as part of the Hit-Makers series. Wendell Mobley contributed his big copyrights Fast Cars and Freedom, a hit for Rascal Flatts, and There Goes My Life, a career song for Kenny Chesney which was inspired by Mobley’s experience losing his daughter and lingering on her memory the day she would have turned 18.
Born in Ohio, Mobley moved into the writer’s room after time spent playing guitar for Alabama. He wrote How Forever Feels for Chesney and Take Me There with him, which became a chart-topper for Rascal Flatts, who also cut his song Banjo. Randy Houser did the same with How Country Feels, while Jason Aldean recorded several Mobley compositions including Tattoos on This Town, A Little More Summertime and See You When I See You.
All Episodes can be found here
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