Country music is part romance, part mystery, and part yearning for a simpler time. Lee Brice brings that all to the table - and to our podcast today - with "Hey World" his 5th studio album. This larger than life country artist is kindness itself, and that theme runs through all his music, old and new. I was especially touched by the singles, "Sons & Daughters" which speaks to the single truth that for all our differences, every one of us "is somebody's son, somebody's daughter" as well as "Lies" uncovering the sad reality that "the cruelest lies of all the lies we tell are the one's we tell ourselves..." Of course there's upbeat, fun, and funky tracks too, like "One Of Them Girls", "Atta Boy" and "Don't Need No Reason." "Hey World" is a much needed anthem to help us navigate the crazy on our way back to some much needed stability. Pull on yer boots and join us! ~ Delilah
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Hello, they're my friend. That welcome to love someone with Delilah. You know, I've often mentioned that country music it's a very special place in my heart. For those of you who have not heard this from me before, you might not know that I come from from a music filled childhood, specifically mostly country music. My parents were close with two other families that we considered family. I mean, they were friends, but they were family closer than family. We spent most weekends in each other's company. It often involves some kind of project that the adults worked on together. They did home remodeling together, fence repairs, fishless fishing trips. That'd go on fishing trips, but they never brought any fish home. And kids. There were four, five, six, seven, eight, nine of us. Nine kids underfoot, ten kids doing crazy things that kids do while parents are otherwise occupying. Dinners were rambunctious and delicious affairs. Lots of Southern fried chicken that was Mom's specialty, baked beans, fresh baked bread. Everyone loved my mom's homemade pizza. After dinner, the men and one of the women would settle down with their guitars and their playbooks filled with hits by Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins, Charlie Pride, Hank Williams, and they would begin hours long jam sessions till the middle of the night. Early in the morning, us kids nine and all would still be up to our high jinks, but tired from a long day. Our muscles and mine would relax. The music soaked into us, becoming a part of us, even if we were unaware at the time of its profound influence in our lives. Today, I'm excited to welcome a profound and prolific country artist to love someone. He's a man easily described as larger than life, because well, because he is larger than life. He is a big man with a big voice and is really incredibly talented his songwriting, his musical hits, and I hear he has an even bigger heart. Will hold onto your hats, will be back to talk with the man himself, Lee Bryce, after I spend a few minutes bragging about my podcast sponsor, the Home Depot. The Home Depot is sponsoring this wonderful conversation. Time was you had to go to an appliance store to learn about all of your options. The Home Deep has put all the information into your hands on your phone in the home Depot app. You can still go into their stores that love to see you, but if you prefer download their app and see all that's there, they're low pricing and consider your options. You can find the same thing online on their website too, and for the appliance you find, there's free shipping included. If you need a new appliance, you know it. You know which one needs replacing. Now maybe the best time to do that with the Home Depot's help. Welcome to Love Someone with Delilah. I had Lee Bryce on my radio show as an honorary Friday Night girl, and I promised you then that we would do a podcast, and so Lee, welcome back. Welcome to Love Someone with Delilah. I don't know if you were listening when I did my little introduction, but my dad and his two best friends um had a country western band and they played at honky Tonks, they played at the Elks and the Eagles, They played at the local nursing homes for folks. So I grew up listening every weekend to my dad and his friends jamming. But Hank Williams and Tennessee Ernie Ford and uh, you know, we we were raised picking and grinning and watching heha every week. I mean that's kind of a piece of who you are, you know. I mean, that's the piece of where you came from. If you're talking about those country roots, you know, and and those love songs man Earl Thomas Connie. If you've never heard the song, uh, it's the hard thing of ever had to do holding her loving you one you need to check out. Oh I know that song. Well. I know you would be surprised at if you ever saw my my iPhone or iPod library the music that I listened to when I'm not playing Celine Dion um yea. And my sister and I both love old country. I mean, we love new country too, but we love old country. You know. I got to interview Crystal Gail, I got to interview um so many you know, artists back in the day that spent their whole life on the road and just had great stories to tell. Realie Nelson come in, come on, you know he could. One of my favorite songs, one of my favorite songs that he recorded that Chrisker Stopson wrote take the Ribbon from Shake and Loose and Let It Fall Oh, my gosh, such great music. And I assume you were raised on the same just listening to your songs and your lyrics. You had to have been raised on the same kind of poetry set to music. Yes, yes, absolutely, And that was the stuff, you know, is that Willie and some of those love songs that Kenny Rogers. My daddy listened to. He listened a lot of vocal groups because he was like, you know, gospel kind of quartet stuff. So like he was way into Alabama and Oakwards Boys and the Statler Brothers and stuff like that. To the harmonies. And my mama and her sisters all, you know, they sang every harmony there was and they even made a Nashville record when they were kids, you know. And so I grew up with my mom and her aunt doing all the singing, and so I learned harmonies in every which way, shape and form from from them and singing in church and and so that's the roots right there. Everyone in my family, there are four kids and my folks. Everyone in my family is musical except me. I cannot. I cannot carry a tune in a bucket if it only had four notes. And I think the reason I figured out because that there's not many things I cover it like, I've never coveted things. I could care less about things. Um. When I was younger, I coveted a husband. I wanted a good husband because the ones I found were rotten to the bone. But but the one thing I coveted and I still do, I mean, I confess it all the time is musical talent. And I think the reason that God said no to that is because I have such a bad ego, and I think he knew if I had that gift, I would abuse it, um and and put myself in harm's way. Boll. I'll tell you you know, it's easy to do if you're coming out young and you got music and um, and you could find yourself. And there's been plenty of people I know, and myself included who you know. You find yourself doing your dream, which is basically all you ever could dream of is playing music for a living, right, writing songs for a living, for producing playing songs live, and then you can find yourself in a quickly if you let yourself, you can find yourself in a place to where all of a sudden, music isn't the most important thing. And that's when you catch yourself and go away. Um, you know, uh, it's nothing, has nothing to do with with fame, has nothing. I always had everything to do with the music, and so you know, luckily I was able to catch myself. And I've got a bunch of friends have been through it, and they they said, manage And I could always tell, like I could tell if they were going through it, maybe a patch and like and then all of a sudden their music change, even their look, their field of looking there out of twinkling their eye, and I'm like, you're back, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of caught myself, you know, falling off that edge and realized and that that that the music was always what it was supposed to be about, and then all of a sudden it wasn't. You know, whenever you make it a business and then you start having fun, you get on the road and make it about fame or money or anything like that, and none of that has anything to do with what we all dreamed about when we were kids, you know, and listen to some music that we love and so so yeah, I mean that can happen pretty quickly. I've taken piano lessons, I've taken music lessons. I've taken vocal lessons from three different vocal coaches and they all say the same thing. Stick with your nighttime job. You know, a lot of a lot of musicians, including myself, A big piece of y love to do music is because I love people to hear it, right, I want them to hear my heart through music, and that would be mostly through my songs, but of course I found outside songs, and so a little bit of a I just gotta tell you this, I think we we are a lot of like in that way. You know, you might not be a singer, but you're sharing your music and your musical heart with with people, and you have been for so long and you have influenced so many lives, including mine, and um, you just want to you just want to impact people, you know, and that's that's a big part of why most of us do this. Now we'll say the whole some of us who are kind of meant to be on that stage, you know, like we're missing those live shows right now, you know, we're missing that piece of us as a whole, a little bit a little hole in our hearts, like wanting to get out there and see people's faces when whenever we're playing that guitar and in or playing that piano and and and seeing that song that we rode. So but I think you you have there's a musician in you, and you get it out in your own way. So tell me. I I got the video. I don't know when Janie, my producer, sent it to me. She sent me the video of Hey World, and I wrote her back and I said, um, and that is why I am so happy at my ranch. I'm reading off my my um my text back to her. It says, and this is why I'm so content and happy at my ranch. This song says it all. Yeah. And people have been trying to to understand why I'm not going crazy because I'm at a ranch, my husband's cattle ranch, five acres out in the middle of nowhere, and they're like, aren't you missing this? Aren't you missing that? I'm like, well, yeah, of course i am. I'm missing the Big Apple, I'm missing Nashville. I'm but but but the lyrics of hey World and the the video of you and your babies and fishing and and just being shut in with your family just blessed my heart so much. It's so I gotta tell you. I gotta tell you where the song came from. My co writer. We were talking that morning, we were going to write, and he said, now you know we got any duds? He said, well, I got you know, this happened this morning, and he would be proceeded to tell me that he got up early and you know, and he had a TV young watching the news and his four year old, little Dallas, walked in and said, hey, Daddy, can we turn the TV off? And Dallas, my my friend, Dallas said, said my co writer, Well said yeah, I mean cand son, but like wow, like what you know, wy would you want why would you want me to turn the TV off? You know? And uh a little Dallas, his four year old son, said, well, because it's it's scaring me. Well, Dallas was watching the news and the heck, if you really think about it, at the time, in the beginning of this this pandemic and this whole thing, everything on that TV was scary even to an adult, much left a four year old. You know, so many cases and so many of this mat depths and not in the danger and all the stuff. And so it hit Dallas how much that impacted that moment with his son, and he said, you know, and I always said, was hey, world, leave me alone, and it and it wasn't anything. You know. We we we kind of struggle a little bit with we don't want to make people think, we don't want to like beunify, to be together. But you know, even ten years ago and ten years from now, there are times when this world gets moving so fast that everybody at some time wants just a second. They want to breathe, They want a minute. You know, you need a minute to yourself and to understand and maybe reevaluated, rEFInd yourself in a in in a quiet space, you know, and let and hear the wind and see that you know the stuff the song talks about, and and listen to the pines. I love that. You know. That's where we went the song and we said, you know this the song really does. Yes, obviously it comes from this moment, right, but truthfully, it could have been twenty years ago or twenty years from now, and like it's on. You know, I think a piece of this whole thing. You know, maybe God was saying, you know, you guys are going too fast. I need to slow you guys down. I need a lot of you to look up and see what's important right and and not take so many things for grant and and and take advantage of some of the small things I give you every day. And I think it has for pro most of I find I think most of the whole world has realized and learned a lot of those little things that are really actually big things, you know. And And so we didn't really we just wrote it how we would write it, you know. And we I didn't know what was gonna happen. And then I met blessing and and and a whole new level came into the song, you know, and just um it was. It was a special song. And actually I was supposed to play on a on a big network show my new, brand new single, right and I decided which label wasn't too happy about at the time, But I decided that the world and the moment needed to hear Hey World. So I played Hey World instead last minute, didn't tell anybody, and they couldn't turn the cameras office time. I love that you don't need my label blowing up my phone and my manner to go what are you? What are you doing? What are you doing? In your new single, You're supposed I said, well, I felt like the world needs to hear it. And because you know, I don't know, I didn't know if it was gonna be able to reach the ready or reach this or that. It was just a song we'd written and it wasn't even supposed to be on the record, and then it ended up being the title of the record because right now, that's where I am, and that's what my records are all about, is where I'm at or I'm out of my life at that point in time, you know, and those those last year or two and and so, Hey World has been a very special song since day one, and and it's real, and it's it's kind of like it's okay to not be okay sometimes, you know what I mean? Hey worlds alone. I don't want to turn on the TV. Ain't nothing but bad news on. You're the rain way for another day, and this heart's worn out, it's had all it cantay, Hey worm, leave me in long you don't calm me up today, I won't be picking up the phone. I'm gonna sit here on this portsway and listen to the pine saying everything I need right here at home. Hey you are I just need some space. Could you give mind it? Catch my path today? I leave that long. But you ain't going no where. So if you don't mind, if you don't care, care worm, leave me alone. Don't call me up today. I won't be picking up the phone. I'm gonna sit here on this tord swinging, listen to the pine sing everything I need is right here at home. Hey worm, leave me mabe, hey whorl leet me alone. Don't call me up today. I won't be picking up the phone. I'm gonna sit you on this porsway and listen to the post saying everything I need right here at home. Hey world, Hey world. Well I love you, Lee, Bryce, thank you. Go get my love to the boys and keep writing and I will talk to you soon