CMT Blog: Archive

A lot of kids get labeled "The Next (insert guitar idol here)," but rarely do they seem as poised to make good on the compliment as 18-year-old Tyler Bryant. Even Vince Gill thinks so: "To be 18 and play like this kid is the rarest of the rare. Hands down a future guitar god." He's got the energy of an 18-year-old, too, and attacks guitars in a flurry of motion. Even though he's been in Nashville for less than a year, he's already secured a spot touring with Heart and Styx and was featured in the film Rock Prophecies. And although he's firm about his style remaining blues-based classic rock, I'm curious to see if country music fans would like to find a place for him. As a musician living in Nashville, he says the country influence has definitely been seeping into his mind (not that it isn't familiar to him, he's a native Texan and distant cousin of Roger Miller). I saw him Tuesday night (Sept. 22) at 3rd & Lindsley and was pretty well blown away by his band, a power trio that features Belmont University sophomores Caleb Crosby and Calvin Webster, and could have sworn I heard a country song called "The Way You Do."