Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS APRIL 1, 2019 | PAGE 1 OF 19 INSIDE BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE [email protected] Kelsea, Combs Make Chart News ACM Surprise: How Golden Hour Brought >page 4 Six Nominations To A ‘Hack Of All Trades’ Zac Brown Band’s Great Escape When Ian Fitchuk showed up at a Nashville studio on Feb. 20 for trouble accepting recognition.” >page 9 a Carly Pearce recording session, the moment had an awkward Fitchuk has gotten plenty in recent years, particularly the kind air about it. musicians want most — numerous calls for repeat business — as he The Academy of Country Music had announced its has steadily built his reputation in Nashville. He plays keyboards nominations just hours earlier, and Fitchuk — who had never on most of the tracks on Maren Morris’ new Girl album and Austin Bashes been an ACM finalist — appeared contributes piano and/or drums Bolster Lineups six different times on the ballot. on the latest albums by Shania >page 10 He was up for producer of the year, Twain, Chase Rice, Lucie Silvas, and Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Midland, Ruston Kelly and Brett Hour — which he co-produced Eldredge. Fitchuk also plays with Musgraves and buddy Daniel bass on Dierks Bentley’s The Country Singer Tashian — was in the running Mountain, which will compete Shifts To Politics for album. Fitchuk also became with Golden Hour for album of the >page 10 the first person nominated year when the ACMs are handed simultaneously in four different out April 7 in Las Vegas. musician categories: bass player, “He’s such a musical guy,” says Makin’ Tracks: drummer, piano/keyboards The Mountain co-producer Ross HARDY Gets player and specialty instrument(s) Copperman. “[Engineer] Reid ‘Rednecker’ player of the year. Shippen actually told me after >page 14 At least three people at the Feb. we booked Ian on the session, ‘You 20 session —Pearce, drummer know, Ross, Ian doesn’t really do Aaron Sterling and guitarist bass on sessions, but I know what Derek Wells — were fellow a great musician he is.’ Reid was nominees, but Fitchuk was the that confident in him. We flew Country Coda: FITCHUK Historic Keith center of the conversation. For him out to Telluride [Colo.] to be Whitley Moment someone who makes his living in the bass player.” >page 19 a support role, that spotlight brought some uneasiness. Fitchuk’s approach to the instrument shows a nuanced “I felt a little sheepish,” says Fitchuk during a break at a uniqueness. In Bentley’s current single, “Living,” the bass lifts session in north Nashville, where he’s producing new music and rolls quietly from one measure into the next through the for Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards. “I have first verse, creating subtle movement to help push the narrative BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE APRIL 1, 2019 | PAGE 2 OF 19 forward without calling attention to Fitchuk. He clearly works well with others. “The fact that Ian plays drums doesn’t hurt,” says Bentley. “He and [drummer] Matt [Chamberlain] really spoke well together on a musical communicational level.” Fitchuk is well trained for that sort of communication. The Chicago native’s parents are classical musicians with side pursuits: His father plays viola but earned his college degree by studying voice; his mother is a flutist who is also a member of a bagpipe band. Both are music teachers as well, and they schooled their son by example to meld personal creativity into the needs of the group. The younger Fitchuk was particularly enamored of pop records that featured complex arrangements or emotions, and he moved to Nashville in 2000 to study jazz piano at Belmont University. That didn’t last long — he joined jam band The Dahlia Llamas and toured long enough to realize he preferred steady local work over the grind of the road. Producing an album by singer-songwriter Griffin House in 2004 helped him transition into regular studio work, and Fitchuk Blake Shelton welcomed Brooks & Dunn as guest advisors for four became a part of Nashville’s underground scene. episodes of the current season of NBC’s The Voice. From left: Ronnie Two 2009 projects — Landon Pigg’s melancholy track “Falling in Love Dunn, Shelton and Kix Brooks. in a Coffee Shop” and Mindy Smith’s moody album Stupid Love — made a particular impression within the community, though it was years before that became apparent. Both Musgraves and Morris cited Smith’s album as an influence. “It just goes to show: Do your best at all times,” reflects Fitchuk. “The seeds that you plant, you don’t have control over how they’re going to grow in the end.” Morris had flirted with Fitchuk as a producer before she instead landed with busbee, but she recommended Fitchuk to Musgraves, who worked with him and Tashian to write and produce the first five tracks for what became Golden Hour. Her management, Sandbox Entertainment, thought so highly of the work that the company self-financed the album and unveiled it to Universal Music Group Nashville only after it was completed. Commercial expectations were not particularly high — “It seemed too arty,” says Fitchuk — but the album’s mix of acoustic and programmed elements, plus its moody vibe, connected at a deep level with her audience and the Nashville music community. Rodney Atkins headlined a March 26 installment of the Country Music “She has this melancholic voice that is both comforting and sad at the same Association’s CMA Songwriters Series at Nashville’s Listening Room time,” he says. “Then we have that song ‘Happy & Sad.’ The topic of that song during the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival. From left: songwriter somewhat frames, I think, the album as a whole, which isn’t just trying to make Shane Minor (“Chillin’ It”), Atkins and songwriter Rose Falcon you feel one way or another. It’s trying to accept the human experience as a (“Friday Night”). complex and layered experience.” Not surprisingly, Fitchuk has layered more work atop the notoriety Golden Hour has yielded. His professional dance card of late has included Edwards, Eldredge, Lady Antebellum and Little Big Town, and he’s expecting to work with non-country acts Leon Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. Some of those efforts have been joint projects with Tashian, who is likewise a fellow band member in Skyline Motel, a Fleetwood Mac-like ensemble they formed on the side with Nashville singer-songwriters Sarah Buxton and Kate York. Fitchuk primarily plays drums with the unit, which opened for Musgraves during her recent four- night stand at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in advance of a forthcoming EP. Meanwhile, Fitchuk’s versatility is evident on Musgraves’ “Rainbow,” which is currently No. 38 on Country Airplay. His piano is the sole instrument backing her on the recording, taken from perhaps 11 attempts on 11 different days; she sang it at the close of each Golden Hour recording session, and the single is the best take of those informal performances. Dustin Lynch visited Cumulus’ syndicated morning program, The Ty He was the lone visible musician when she performed it at the Grammy Bentli Show, in support of new single “Ridin’ Roads.” From left: Bentli, Awards, where Golden Hour earned album of the year, and it was — much like Lynch and Bentli Show co-hosts Tricia “T.J.” Jenkins and Chuck Wicks. the day that he secured those ACM nominations — a bit awkward. After he flubbed some chords in the dark at dress rehearsal, he asked for a light on the keyboard, but it was never clear until the on-camera live performance started that that request had been fulfilled. He froze slightly at the bridge, missed a chord and, for a split second, harbored a fear that without that chord, the whole song would fall apart. It did not — “Rainbow” was one of the highlights of the telecast — and Fitchuk does what comes naturally in explaining that situation: He puts the focus on the artist. “Kacey, thank God, came back in, and everything was fine,” he says. “It was terrifying, but I thought she did a great job.” Fitchuk, who calls himself a “hack of all trades,” can thus be taken at face value when he looks ahead with humility to the ACMs, downplaying his role as a single musician and focusing on how he syncs up with the larger group, in which he clearly belongs. “I don’t necessarily expect to win any of those musician categories,” he says. Scotty McCreery (center) celebrated the chart-topping success of “I don’t. I’m just thankful that of all those people in all those categories, pretty “This Is It” with co-writers/co-producers Aaron Eshuis (left) and Frank much most of them are really close friends.” Rogers during a March 20 No. 1 party hosted by ASCAP and BMI. RODE ED MCCREERY: CMA. BERRY HUNTER ATKINS: BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE APRIL 1, 2019 | PAGE 4 OF 19 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] Kelsea Ballerini Adds One ‘More’ Hot Country Songs Top 10; Luke Combs Extends Airplay Reign Kelsea Ballerini nets her sixth top 10 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, Airplay, Country Streaming Songs, Country Digital Song Sales and Top which combines airplay, streaming and sales data, as “Miss Me More” (Black Country Albums. He concurrently leads the lists for a third frame. Only Kane River) jumps 14-8 on the list dated April 6. Brown has previously achieved the feat, on Oct. 28, 2017. The track is the just the second top 10 for a female artist unaccompanied by Combs’ “Beautiful Crazy” (River House/Columbia Nashville) rules another act in 2019, following Maren Morris’ “Girl” (No.