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Jake Owen Says Ronnie Dunn Told Him To Stop Hitting On The Background Singers During Their Early Touring Days: “He Had Some Fine Background Singers”
Ronnie don’t play.
Jake Owen just released stellar new album Dreams to Dream, which was produced by Shooter Jennings and is a career-defining effort from the Florida native. Of course, you probably know him from hits like “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” “Alone with You,” “The One That Got Away” or “Anywhere with You,” but this new record is a completely different side of Owen’s musical prowess, and it’s great.
Of course with the rollout of a new record comes tons of press, and during an appearance on the Drifting Cowboy Podcast, Owen recalled opening for the legendary country duo Brooks and Dunn, and Ronnie in particular calling him out.
Owen says he was around 23 at the time, on tour with Brooks & Dunn and Alan Jackson, and he fell in love with one of Brooks & Dunn’s background singers… but Ronnie was NOT having it:
“Ronnie used to give me a hard time telling me not to try to, you know, for lack of a better term, hit on his background singers. Like I said, I was 23, I only played 15, 20 minutes a night on tour with Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn.
He had some fine background singers, and there was a girl that I was in love with, so I was chasing after her, man, all the time. Ronnie picked up on it. He said, ‘Hey, stop. I don’t care what you do. Stop hitting on my background singers.’ I said, ‘Okay, alright.’ But he gave me a hard time about that.”
I mean, what was he supposed to do in his free time? You can’t blame the guy for trying…
Jake also talked about meeting his ultimate hero in Alan Jackson:
“It’s funny because there’s a few people in hero world that I’ve always wanted to meet. I learned after meeting Alan, maybe I don’t and it’s because Alan is so soft spoken, that I think we all want our heroes to be in an engaging conversation with you, you know?”
You can probably see where this is going… their first meeting didn’t exactly live up to expectations.
Jake was signed to a deal by the same women that had signed Alan many years prior, and during that tour, Jake finally got to meet his musical hero:
“When I was on tour with him, she said, ‘Hey, I want you to meet him. I’m going to take you on his bus so you can meet him.’ It’s like, no way. And I had a hat that I wore most of the time when I was playing in college in my band Yeehaw Junction, I still have photos of me in that cowboy hat.
I wore it to his show one night in college, and I got close enough to the stage, like every fan does that I see at our shows or any show, just begging him, please grab mine. And he grabbed mine, and he signed it. Alan has a beautiful signature… so I kept that hat, and when I found out I was gonna meet him, I took it with me.
What a cool story, I went from being in the crowd to being actually on the stage opening the show for you, and I still have this hat you signed for me. Like, you signed this when I was in the crowd.”
Alan is a man of few words, and so he didn’t have too much to say to that… and Jake was more than okay with it, and he admires how much meaning Jackson’s words have because of it:
“I told him that story, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I signed a lot of them hats.’ He was like, ‘It’s about that time.’ That was it. So that was my great interaction with Alan. That was all I ever needed, though, because what I’ve always loved about him is his simplicity and how soft spoken he is. In a way, I wish I could be more like that. I wish I could say less and mean more.”
It’s so interesting to hear about Jake’s early days in the industry, and his career over the last two decades has been incredibly nuanced and he’s really evolved as an artist with Dreams To Dream. It’s an album I’ve always wanted him to make, and more importantly, it’s an album that it sounds like he’s always wanted to make, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
The full podcast is available below.
I’ll leave a few of my favorite songs below…
“The Jukebox Knows”
“Them Old Love Songs”
“Long Time Lovin’ You”
The post Jake Owen Says Ronnie Dunn Told Him To Stop Hitting On The Background Singers During Their Early Touring Days: “He Had Some Fine Background Singers” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
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