Oklahoma-born country chart-topper Corey Kent discusses his fourth album, “Black Bandana,” and the lessons he learned by staying focused on success.
Instead of doubling down on his teenage pursuit of Nashville stardom, Oklahoma-born country performer Corey Kent was persuaded by Garth Brooks to focus more on his education and to have a fallback plan.
A decade later, Kent had a 2023 No. 1 single.
He has also gained a wife, three children and land to maintain in Texas.
Kent eventually came to understanding the meaning of Brooks’ advice as, don’t wave the white flag at your dreams. Thus, his 2024 album’s title “Black Bandana ” (out Friday) represents how he intends to double down on dreams he has not just for himself but also that he shares with his family.
“This album is about how it isn’t always easy not to wave the white flag when life gets tough,” says Kent, in an interview with The Tennessean in August.
Global appeal on the rise
Kent’s 10-track album represents where he has arrived at after 20 years and four albums of carving a niche into many of country’s best-regarded traditions.
As 2024 turns into 2025, those stylings will grow, via a headlining European tour, from red-dirt roots to worldwide appeal.
Alongside fellow Texans like Randall King, Kent’s ability to broaden his creative arc to include touring with fellow local-to-global expanding Lone Star performers like Parker McCollum, making waves with top-charting stalwarts like Jason Aldean and Ashley McBryde, and performing with fellow emerging neotraditional and roots-driven performers like Kaitlin Butts and Lauren Watkins is essential.
“I’m making music right now that appeals to people who want something that reflects a bit more depth and connects in that way,” Kent says.
Yes, he can still deliver songs like 2023’s “Wild as Her” that allow him to top the country charts and develop streaming and viral appeal.
However, at his core, he’s a country performer who began his career playing Western swing at age 11, played at homecoming all four years at Oklahoma State University, which he attended, and was mentored by Blake Shelton on “The Voice” in 2015.
‘Black Bandana’
Listen to “Black Bandana” and a song like “Never Ready” — which among many topics focuses on the life-changing emotional gravitas associated with seeing a nurse place your newborn child on your wife’s chest — highlights a maturity that, when asked about it, he immediately shies away from accepting.
“I don’t know about all of that,” he jokes.
In a manner not unlike his father, he’s now also a parent who loves speeding down backroads on motorcycles as much as changing diapers or playing sold-out concerts.
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However, he’s still God-fearing, intelligent and virtuous. Being an artist whose determined work in the studio and hard-charging touring schedule mirrors his red dirt heroes like the Oklahoma-based band Turnpike Troubadours offers a comfortable life for his family and extends the example that artists like Brooks and Randy Rogers set for him in the modern era.
Dig deeper into “Black Bandana” and his just-released Lauren Alaina duet “Now or Never’ — a song about “taking a stand against someone who needs to make up their mind whether they love you or they don’t” — is a steel guitar-aided ’80s-style power ballad. It’s the type of song constructed and delivered to be accessible to radio ears and touring arms wrapped around a loved one.
And as for the beat-driven banger of an album cut “Damn Good Country Song”? It was penned by BMI Song of the Year-level tunesmith Ben Burgess (Morgan Wallen’s “Whiskey Glasses”) alongside Michael Lotten and Whitney Phillip and also highlights Liz Rose Music-signed producer and songwriter Joe Fox’s work at blending modern urban pop soundscapes with timeless country lyrics and vocals.
On paper, it could be lumped in with many songs about rural and small-town guys who take their broken hearts to Music Row. Then listen to Kent’s gritty rasp loop itself around the following words:
“I’ll give you my T-shirt, my Bass Pro hat / You promise me the world, then take it all back / Cheat on me baby; you make me go crazy / My voice in the jukebox, only thing that can save me”
When blended with its production, the color of Kent’s vocal matched with the ever-so-slight cinematic turn the song takes, creating a compelling total package.
Dreams coming true
For the best perspective on Kent’s work, it’s fascinating to turn back the clock a decade to when he was still a student at Oklahoma State.
In a 2015 interview, he offers the following statements that, beyond the hundreds of millions of streams and success he’s already achieved, provide a sense of how forthright his conviction will likely remain as he continues to wave a black bandana toward increased country success:
“My time at OSU helped me tremendously. I’ve learned how to learn and have applied that to every situation. … After college, I’ll work and start a family; family is very important to me.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-03 13:00:00
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