Music Row (Sept. 20th 2018)

Blake Shelton Celebrates Two No. 1 Hits With Party At Nashville’s Ole Red

[edited version]

Shelton, who earned the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year honor in 2012, and has been named Male Vocalist of the Year five times, and holds six winning seasons as a coach on The Voice, thanked the songwriters for their work.

“I’m a huge country music nerd and all four of these know how I’m fascinated by writers and artists. I tried [writing songs] every now and then…and I love real songwriters,” he said. “So thank you for a great song and for God’s sakes, write me another one whenever you get a chance.”

Of the retro-sounding “I’ll Name The Dogs,” he ventured, “Country music is changing rapidly and I guess that has to be ok. It is ok. But for me, when I heard this song and [Shelton’s girlfriend] Gwen [Stefani] and I listened to yall’s demo a thousand times. It sounded like something Shenandoah would have cut. We might be on borrowed time here to get something this country on radio one more time and have it accepted. It went over pretty good, I guess. Thank you guys for taking a little bit of a step back in time. It sounded like late ‘80s and early ‘90s which is when I started wanting to be a country music singer. Thank you Scott for making a great record and taking my ideas…that’s just a joke. Thank you everyone at Warner for working your asses off.”