A Cup of Coffee with Buddy Jewell

20 some odd years ago, America chose Buddy Jewell as the first winner of Nashville Star.  The show ran on the USA Network, and was the country cousin to American Idol.  Buddy beat 11 other singers that season including Miranda Lambert. His debut release was #1 on the Country Album chart, and had 2 top five hits with Sweet Southern Comfort and Help Pour Out the Rain (Lacey’s Song).

Buddy;s career has been in full gear evert since, including winning the International Country Gospel Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year. He was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainer’s Hall of Fame in 2015, had a #1 Christian Country hit, I’m There in 2018, and won ICMA “Male Vocalist of the Year” the following year.

Buddy Jewell has earned many credits as a songwriter for other artists, as well as touring the world. In 2023, Buddy toured Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Spain, Germany and Austria. He is involved in charitable causes such as past spokesperson for The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation and Compassion International, ministers to inmates, and actively supports children’s causes such as St. Jude’s.  He has entertained our troops at home and abroad, including remote forward operating bases on the front lines in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

This cup of coffee chat with Buddy took place backstage at a festival in Ohio.  I want to add that I had texted the contact phone number I was given to confirm details about 30 minutes before the agreed-on time.  These are always the road manager or band member’s number.  In this case, I get a text back saying it was Buddy and told me the meet up point to be escorted backstage. I arrive there and lo and behold, Buddy comes out to meet me himself.  Truly, the first time that has ever happened!

Me: I just met two folks out there in the crowd, who were from Spain, who worked on the choreography for your music video.

Buddy Jewell: Yeah, Lucien and Marie. There’s a big line dance festival.  It’s the second one I’ve done. The first time was 10 years ago, and so all these Frenchmen and women come all the way to Spain for a line dance festival, because it’s cheaper to do the festival in Spain.

That’s where I met them 10 years ago, and they had me back this year.  Marie took one of my songs The Southern Side of Heaven, and created a dance for it called The South, and it’s blown up in France.  I guess that part of Europe over there says that that’s really cool.

Me: 1200 people line dancing in your video, that’s got to be mind-blowing, comparing to what it would constitute to do that here.

Buddy Jewell:  Oh my gosh yes. And the cool thing was that the first night I was there I was just hanging out.  So, I got to go and they let me get on stage in a video, and then they sent me the professional video of the night that I was performing and them doing it again. So, it was really cool. I teared up over that.

Me:  You were the first Nashville star….

Buddy Jewell:  I still am!

Me: True….I specifically remember you beating Miranda!  Do you think that the career is built that way now?

Buddy Jewell:  Well, have you looked at the roster on today?  How many of these acts came off of the voice of American Idol? I know a few of them are, but, maybe a lot more so than back then.  But gosh, you know, that was about 21 years ago. There were a handful of what then were reality shows on TV.  American Idol had done their first year and they were in their second year when Nashville Star came out.  I think maybe you had Big Brother, The Race and Survivor. and that was about it.

So yeah, the internet has just made a world of difference with all the social media and everything, and I think that’s great. I wish we’d have gotten a better handle on it early on, but hey it’s a blessing to folks and has been to us.

Me:  And you’re still out there bringing it…how many of them aren’t that placed in the top 4 or 5

Buddy Jewell:  I hear you…and that’s why I feel sorry for Miranda because she come in third and look what it did to her career. I pray for her every night!  (Laughs)

Me: The reason I brought that up, I talked to Craig Wayne Boyd, who won The Voice several years ago.  He played this area a lot before he won that, and said there was times like the record label didn’t even know who he was after he won.  That’s why I asked if can you build a career a different way though anymore?

Buddy Jewell: I don’t have much to do with the labels anymore. I’ve been on my own for a while. I think probably, and I’m just guessing, but a lot of them have kind of gotten a little spoiled where everything’s brought to them like the digital EPKs and stuff like that.  They don’t send guys out scouting for talent anymore. It’s a rare thing to go back to those days.

But, you were talking about Craig. I had been in Nashville for 10 years doing studio work, and all those labels knew who I was. All of them had turned me down, at least twice.  Everybody, major labels, independents, and nothing. Then, Sony Columbia, because praise God, they gave me my shot.  But the day before I won, they didn’t want me, or they would have already signed me.  So, it’s walking into an interesting situation, for sure.

Me:   So, Pour out the Rain comes out, and everything takes off for you.  What does that do for you?  You said you’d been walking around looking for a deal for years and all of a sudden, hey, I got one hit here I am….or had the reality of the business already settled in to you.

Buddy Jewell:  I don’t think anything can prepare you for that, especially as fast as that song came on. And the interesting thing was my wife called me the night that I sang it on the show, and she said, this is crazy.  She said we were getting tens of thousands of messages and emails from people that the song affected.

And I thought I wrote a hit song and didn’t even know it.  Now, doing it on TV probably helped itself. But, that to me was a God thing. And so, I knew, if I won, what I was going to release as my first single.  But yeah, nothing can prepare you for that.

Clint Black was a great mentor to me and produced the first record. And he said, every day, try to find some time just to step back and realize what’s going on around, because it comes so fast, and he was right.

Me:   So, Pour out the Rain comes out, and everything takes off for you.  What does that do for you?  You said you’d been walking around looking for a deal for years and all of a sudden, hey, I got one hit here I am….or had the reality of the business already settled in to you.

Buddy Jewell:  I don’t think anything can prepare you for that, especially as fast as that song came on. And the interesting thing was my wife called me the night that I sang it on the show, and she said, this is crazy.  She said we were getting tens of thousands of messages and emails from people that the song affected.

And I thought I wrote a hit song and didn’t even know it.  Now, doing it on TV probably helped itself. But, that to me was a God thing. And so, I knew, if I won, what I was going to release as my first single.  But yeah, nothing can prepare you for that.

Clint Black was a great mentor to me and produced the first record. And he said, every day, try to find some time just to step back and realize what’s going on around, because it comes so fast, and he was right.

Me:  The song you re-recorded with Clint Black and Marty Raybon and others. That was an earlier song for you, right?

Buddy Jewell:  Yeah. Sweet Southern Comfort was the second single off of that first record.  Both of the first two singles went to number three.  I’m more known for that one as far as being on the radio, but Help Pour Out the Rain sold more records.

Me:  What prompted you to do those guys together and redo it?

Buddy Jewell:  Actually, the guy that’s working with me now, Brandyn Steen, told me when the 20-year anniversary was coming up in 2023, he said, you know we ought to look at re-doing both the songs and obviously, Sweet Southern Comfort was easier to work different vocalists in.  So, I immediately got in touch with Clint Black.

We have stayed in touch and I’ve considered him a friend.  Anytime, I want to talk to him, he always talks to me. So, he’s the first guy I got in touch with, and I told him he was one of the biggest reasons it hit the first time around, and I want you in on this. And he’s like, what do you need me to do?

And then Mitchell Brown, my bass player and road manager and dear, dear friend, like a brother, has a mutual friend that he introduced me to, that plays banjo for Shenandoah. I had met Marty Raybon before, and so he was kind enough to say yeah.  The crazy thing about the Bellamy Brothers, in my 20 years at that time, I’d never met them.

But, I had opened for them in North Carolina in I guess October, and this was in December, so I gave it a shot, and they said yeah.  It’s incredible.  I realized when we were doing the video that we had four decades of country music representing, you know, the Bellamy’s in the 70s and Marty in the 80s. Clint is at the end of the 80s, and then 90s and then me and the 2000s. So, I thought that was really cool.

Me: When you do something like that, is that just basically to call attention to try to sell more of the original album, or is that something they were trying to market into?

Buddy Jewell:  I just wanted to celebrate it, whether we did anything on the new record. But, they marketed that version pretty hard, and it went to number one on cash box. I was just really happy it’s still number one somewhere.

Me: Are you working on a CD to follow that up?

Buddy Jewell:  I say I’m working on a new record, but, in all sincerity I’m not sure how much longer people going to buy CDs. You got to be pretty much all digital, which is a cool thing about because you can put a lot of focus on one song, and kind of test the waters. I’ve got still got a few friends in radio that I can send stuff to it and say would you mind playing this and see what your, your listeners think about it.

We have a couple of things in the can, and I just wrote a song that I really like a lot, but it’s kind of hard to judge because I always like my latest one. It’s like your nearest kid. So, yes, I’ll probably take that approach and maybe do an EP or whatever, but eventually I need to put something together.  I still travel Europe quite a bit and they still want a physical CD. Heck, I am getting a lot of requests for vinyl, but, it’s hard to get vinyl over there.  It weighs a lot.

Me: They don’t even make blank CDs anymore.

Buddy Jewell:  Really?

Me: Yeah.  You can’t buy it.  You just be able to get out of Walmart and get a whole stack of blank CDs.  You can even get that anymore.

Buddy Jewell:  Oh, I’m going to have better hanging on the stack I got at home then.

Me: When you write stuff, do you do that at home?  Do you have a little home studio or whatever when you’re doing your own.

Buddy Jewell:  I own a microphone and some hardware, and some software. I wouldn’t say I know how to operate it. But I got this cool little thing that my buddy Mitchell turned me on to. It’s a little directional mic and it picks up really well.  When you plug it in there is software that you pull up on your computer and you can actually do tracks and mix them yourself.  So, I dabble with that a little bit, but I still turn on my phone and I record on that wherever I’m sitting at my desk in my office.

I guess if you think about it, 2003 when I started, we barely had my space and it was really the very beginning digital music.  But, I’m so busy wearing so many different hats that I probably should put a little more focus on that part of it.  I’ve got three grown children, in fact, my oldest son is playing drums for me on the road now. And we have grand babies, just had a fourth grandchild a month ago, and honestly, they’re more important to me. God has just blessed me so much, man.

And I’m still able to put a cowboy hat on and go out and sing….and people still pay me for it 20 years later. I’m pretty satisfied with that.

Me:  What else do you have list on the bucket list after 20 years?

Buddy Jewell:  You know, I remember when I played the Opry the first time….It’s a blur now….I don’t remember walking out.  I remember standing in that circle and thinking oh my gosh, Johnny Cash stood here, and Johnny Horton and Waylon and everybody else.  I did my stuff and I left the stage.  When I got backstage someone said, did you see that?  I’m like, see what?

And they said, “You got a standing ovation going on and coming off…that doesn’t happen here.”  But it was just like an out-of-body experience.  That’s kind of how I can compare it, you can’t do anything to prepare for it.

Me: I paid $40 for the tour one time and I don’t remember either.  I even bought the picture that proves I was there but it’s a blur to me too.

Buddy Jewell:  I still to this day, people ask me my favorite place to play and it’s the Grand Ole Opry, and it always will be.  There is nothing else like it.  I remember Porter Wagoner friended me in the mid 1990’s and hired me to do some demos, and it blew me away.  I kind of had a standing invitation whenever I wanted to go backstage at the Opry and just to be able to meet somebody like that and then be able to call him a friend was just amazing.  

Anyway, one night we’d gone to the Opry.  This is before Nashville Star and Porter and my mom was in town.  It was Saturday night, so there were two shows, and when they turned the house over, people were going out behind the curtain and getting by the microphone, taking a picture in the circle.

And my mom said to me go out there and get a picture of you in the circle.  So, I did, and when I came back, she said, Someday, you’re going to be singing your music out there.  And, of course, you expect your mom to say stuff like that. Other than my wife she was my biggest fan but I lost her back in 2018.  But, to answer the question, you never forget being there on that stage. And the one thing I haven’t accomplished, and I probably won’t, is I’ve always dreamed of becoming an Opry member. 

And after that…. dig the hole and cover me up.