CMT Blog: Archive

Chris Young was only 5 years old when Keith Whitley's "I'm Over You" was at the top of the charts. But today, just a few weeks shy of his 25th birthday, Young has released his own breathtaking cover of that tune as part of his Voices EP.

As much as every Nashville rookie artist claims to have been influenced by those who came before, I really think Young means it. It's not like he threw together the oft-covered "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Mama Tried." This three-song playlist gave Young the opportunity to record some of his favorite country classics, ones that go a little deeper than most. These tunes fit who he is. "To me this is like the Nashville equivalency test," he told me. "If you don't know 'Chiseled in Stone,' something's wrong."

As for the Whitley song, Young said, "If you have been around me for five minutes you know I'm a Whitley fan." In an only-in-Music-City twist of fate, it turns out that the Whitley song was Tim Nichols' first cut in Nashville. That's the same Tim Nichols who wrote Young's No. 1 hit, "The Man I Want To Be," about 20 years and 30 big hits later.

Young learned to love these older songs from his grandfather, who also turned him on to stuff that goes even further back, like from Marty Robbins and Lefty Frizzell. Even though Young has so many country heroes, he said these three songs were easy choices because of the fans' response at his shows. But what if he'd been able to record just one more? I asked which one it would be: "Something from Randy Travis or Tracy Lawrence, for sure."