We take you behind the scenes and explore the making of one of our favorite tunes with The Song Remembers When…
Song: “Sunny and 75”
Songwriters: Michael Dulaney, Jason Sellers, and Paul Jenkins
Album: Crickets
Since Joe Nichols is guest hosting this weekend’s show, he shared the story behind his 2013 number one hit “Sunny and 75.”
You hear so many times there have been artists with big songs and they didn’t want to cut that song. For instance, I’d always heard that Kenny Rogers did not want to cut “The Gambler” and even hated it after he cut it. So, there are many examples like that throughout country music and I’m sure in other musical genres. But, that was “Sunny and 75” for me.
I was not a fan of the song because I thought it was very rock, pop sounding and that wasn’t something that fit with what I had always been used to doing. But, my record label – specifically, a guy named Benny Brown who owned the record label – believed in me, and he said, “Look, if you go in and cut this song and if it fails or if it doesn’t sound right, nobody will every hear it. But, I believe in you and I think you can really do a good job on this song.”
So, when I first heard the finished product of “Sunny and 75,” I thought, “Man, this sounds like the rock group Journey hired this hick from southern Kentucky to come in and sing this song.” To me, it’s Journey country. But, I’m super proud of this song because I get a lot of tweets every day from some weatherman or some weatherwoman somewhere in the United States who says, “It’s a Joe Nichols kind of day!”
“Sunny and 75” topped the chart in December 2013, becoming his fourth chart-topper at the time. The song was the lead single from Joe’s 2013 album Crickets which also contained his three-week number one “Yeah.”