Exclusive Interview: Hit Producer, Buddy Cannon

When it comes to Country music producers there’s probably not a bigger superstar in Nashville than Buddy Cannon, but he would probably argue that that’s not true. He tends to give credit to everyone but himself but the facts are the facts. Buddy has produced #1 singles like Chely Wright’s “Single White Female,” John Michael Montgomery’s “The Little Girl,” Joe Nichols’ ”Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off,” and Reba‘s “Somebody,” among many others but his work with Kenny Chesney has rendered an amazing 20 number one singles.

Nashville.com recently caught up with Buddy at his Nashville office and he told us how this great partnership got started and he recalled some highlights from each of those number one singles with Kenny.

Buddy was working for Mercury Records back in the early 90s and Kenny had a publishing deal right across the street at Acuff-Rose. Kenny would often hangout at Mercury and that’s how they met, says Cannon. Kenny was a big fan of Sammy Kershaw, who was at the time, produced by Buddy and Norro Wilson. When Kenny got his first record deal with Capricorn records he approached Buddy to see if he and Norro would produce him, but buddy had just produced an outside record for George Jones on MCA and Mercury said no more outside projects, so Buddy had to say no.

Kenny then found Barry Beckett, who produced his first two albums including his first number one song “When I Close My Eyes”. About the time Kenny was working on his second album, Buddy had decided to go independent. Within a few weeks Kenny got in touch with him and the rest is history. “I was always flattered that he came back that second time and I was lucky the timing was what it was. No one could could foresee that this was going to happen but he’s the hardest working guy that I’ve ever been around. He’s very methodical in his planning.”

Here are Buddy’s thoughts on all of the number ones he produced for Kenny:

She’s Got It All — “This was the first single Norro and I produced on Kenny and Kenny said ‘I’ve got to get some more up-tempos, my show is too boring’ so this was really the first uptempo hit he had had. The rest had been ballads. It had a crazy steel guitar solo in it that drove the steel player, Sonny Garrish, crazy.”

That’s Why I’m Here — “That was a Mark Allen Spinger song. Being a recovering alcoholic myself, I had a deep understanding of that song. It was the truth.”

How Forever Feels — “That’s one of the songs I think we were kind of on the fence about cutting but it was one of the biggest songs.”

You had Me From Hello –“I love that song. Kenny and Skip Ewing wrote that and that was the first time we ever used a string section. We haven’t done that very much. He got that line out of the movie ‘Jerry Maguire’ ”.

It Don’t Happen Twice — I can’t think of who wrote that one but that was a big song for us.

The Good Stuff – Joe Gallante was the champion of that song. Kenny and I were on the fence about it and at one point decided we wern’t going to do it, but Joe heard something in there that he was willing to fight for so we ended up cutting it and it was a great big song.”

There Goes My Life — “Oh Gosh, Neil Thrasher and Wendell Mobley wrote that one, and it’s just a picture of comtemporary life. A family saying goodbye to their daughter who’s going off to school. I played that song a few weeks before we cut it for my friend Larry Shell and he got big tears in his eyes. His daughter had just moved to Los Angeles.”
“When they were shooting the video for that song the helicopter that was filming the car drive away crashed. They did survive though.”

When The Sun Goes Down — “Man that was a fun record to make. Kenny cut it and it was great but he wanted to do something a little different with it. He had met Unckle Kracker through his friendship with Kid Rock so Unckle Kracker flew in from Detroit and they made it a duet.”

Anything But Mine — “When you go see that live, that’s a cigarette lighter song. Of cousre now they wave cell phones.”

Living In Fast Forward — “I was going through Leadership Music in 2005 and Rivers Ruthorford was in the same class that I was in. We were leaving one of those meetings and we were walking through the Warner brothers parking lot and Rivers said ‘Hey let me play you this thing David Lee Murphy and I are working on.’ Rivers got his guitar out of his pickup truck and propped one foot up on the tailgate and played me a verse and a chorus of “Living In Fast Forward”. And I said ‘I love it, finish it’. They finished it the next day, brought it over and Kenny loved it.”

Summertime — “That’s one that Craig Wiseman and Steve McEwan wrote and there was a line in it about being down at the ‘tasty freeze’ or ‘Dairy Dip’ or something that Kenny didn’t like. And when Craig finishes a song he’s done. He’ll change them for you but he WILL argue his point before he does. (laughs) It’s still a big crowd pleaser.”

Beer in Mexico — “I think that’s the first time we ever had a horn section. It’s just a big fun party song.”

Never Wanted Nothing More — “Ronnie Bowman and Chris Staplton wrote that song and my daughter Melonie is real good friends with Ronnie and his wife. Well she was over at their house one night playing songs, and when Ronnie played that one, Melonie said, you should get that to my dad for Kenny. Well I listened to it in the car while I was driving to West Tennessee and shortly after that I got a call from Kenny saying he had heard it and put it on hold. Ronnie and Chris both ended up playing on the record too.”

Don’t Blink — “Everybody stops and thinks ‘where has the time gone’ and that song just puts it into music. I loved that song the first time I heard it.”

Better As A Memory — Great Song.

Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven — “I don’t remember much about that session.”

Down The Road — “That’s a Mac McAnally song and Kenny is a huge Mac McAnally fan, I mean everybody is, but Kenny knows all of his songs. Mac played everthing on that song except the percussion.”

Out Last Night — “That’s one that Kenny and Brett James wrote and the way Kenny tells it, they were out late one night down in St. Johns and the next day they woke up and wrote down what they could remember from the night before. (laughs)”

The Boys of Fall – The first time the guys from Sony Tree played me that song I passed on it. That’s one thing that makes this whole thing with Kenny work. We both love songs. And if one of us is having a bad day and doesn’t hear it, it’s highly unlikley that it’s going to get past the filter of both of us. It’s kind of the running joke now that I passed on it.”

Somewhere With You — “That song is just so different melodically and rhythmically. The demo was great. All of the stuff that was on the demo was on the record. My daughter Melonie, who we use on a lot of Kenny’s records is singing the harmonies.”

We’re pretty sure Buddy and Kenny are far from done but we know one thing for sure, Nashville is lucky to have Buddy Cannon. He is a true song man and he’s written some of country music’s most celebrated songs including “Set’em Up Joe” recorded by Vern Gosdin and the ACM 2006 Song of the Year and CMA 2007 Song of the Year, “Give It Away,” recorded by George Strait. And we’re pretty sure he’s going to keep bringing us “The Good Stuff”.
—Jerry Holthouse