SINGER SONGWRITER KIMBERLY KELLY RELEASES “BLUE JEAN COUNTRY QUEEN,” FEATURING STEVE WARINER
Track is Featured on Forthcoming 12-Song, Label Debut, I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen, Set for Release July 8
On the heels of the announcement of her label debut, I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen, arriving July 8 via Show Dog Nashville in partnership with Thirty Tigers, singer/songwriter Kimberly Kelly releases another taste from the forthcoming album with “Blue Jean Country Queen” featuring Steve Wariner. Listen HERE.
Produced by Brett Tyler, Kelly’s husband and a hit songwriter himself with No. 1s like “Cold Beer Calling My Name” under his belt, and written by Kelly, Tyler and Wariner the upbeat track is an ode to confident women with the chorus declaring:
She’s a blue jean country queen
A honky tonk heart attack
Boots to her knees fringe on her sleeves
And horns on her Cadillac
Momma’s prayer, and daddy’s nightmare,
Made for the neon lights
She’s a blue jean country queen
Looking for a king tonight
“It was the first-time meeting and writing with Steve for both Brett and I,” shares Kelly. “Brett was complementing Steve on his signature tempo like the one on ‘Nothin’ but the Taillights’ that he wrote, and I already had the title ‘Blue Jean Country Queen’ which just seemed right for a Steve tempo. Then to top it off, Steve ended up playing guitar on the song. He had us out to his home studio to play us the track. It was incredible. This track might be the theme of the whole album.”
“It was so fun writing this with Kimberly and Brett, even if it was via Zoom,” shares Wariner. “I LOVE this record! It’s a country ‘mini movie’ wrapped up in three and a half minutes. Kimberly absolutely lays it down! So proud to be in on this one!”
The new track follows the release of nostalgic song-of-summer ready track, “Summers Like That” which left Billboard praising Kelly’s “warm, lifting voice.” Written by Karyn Rochelle and Bobby Tomberlin and produced by Tyler, the song not only name checks a number of classic 90s country hits but is also sonically, reminiscence of some of Kelly’s biggest influences, artist like Trisha Yearwood, Pam Tillis, Brooks & Dunn and Deana Carter. Listen to “Summers Like That,” HERE.
A native of Lorena, Texas, Kelly spent years in both the Texas and Nashville music scenes earning an education in experiences that have made her both fearless in her approach to creating and unafraid to defy convention when it comes to industry expectations. Those years of hard work, all while also earning a Master’s degree and working fulltime, culminated last summer in a long-awaited record deal with Show Dog Nashville. Now she is set to make her label debut. Pre-order or pre-save I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen, HERE.
Off stage Kelly possess an inviting warmth mixed with sly self-deprecation, a winsome combo only earned with some life experience, self-awareness and nothing to prove on stage just the goods to stop a listener in their tracks. “This is not my first rodeo,” Kelly says of her label debut. “I worked really hard in Texas before I came to Nashville. I wrote songs, put out records, did a radio tour, and played every weekend while going to school and working full-time.”
The album’s title, I’ll Tell You What’s Gonna Happen, is a clever nod to her friend and fellow Texas musician, the late Country Music Hall of Famer, Billy Joe Shaver. The abbreviated quote comes from the better-than-fiction-true story of Shaver forcing his way into a Waylon Jennings recording session after the star tried to renege on recording some of his songs. Brushing off a $100 bill to go away, Shaver said to Jennings, “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna either listen to these songs or I’m gonna whip your ass.” Waylon agreed to listen to one. The rest is history in the form of Jennings’ 1973 Honky Tonk Heroes album, on which every song but one was written by Shaver.
“I landed on this album title on a dare,” Kelly says. “I was like, ‘Sure. What do I care?’ I did the Texas music scene, I’ve done time in Nashville, and I thought my time had passed when I got offered my record deal. My husband could keep writing songs and I’d just be a speech therapist. So I made this album like it’s the last one I’ll ever get to make and the title is my mantra so to speak. I love good songs, and I let the best ones win whether I wrote them or not. It’s a compilation I’m proud of, and I’m thrilled for people to hear them!”