RT JOHNSON

                                                              "Turn Row Memories" 

                                                              CCB Nashville

2021 provided a monumental turning point for CCB Nashville recording artist RT Johnson when his song “Feel Good Again” hit the Music Row Country Breakout Chart and placed his stamp firmly down on the country music map.

However, 2022 has proven to be a year that has seen Johnson step back and realign his brand with who he is as a person – and not just an artist – to give us several different looks at his country boy charm and down-home beliefs through many of the songs he’s released over the past 11 months, including “You Can’t Go Wrong,” “Daylight Southern Time, and “American Tough.”

As CCB Nashville is now winding down their year-long #newmusicfriday initiative, Johnson wraps up his year with what is his most personal song to date, “Turn Row Memories.”

The song, co-written by Johnson, Kimo Forrest, and Zack Boyd, sees him autobiographically taking us straight back to the North Carolina farming fields and the life-altering moments that raised him.

The mid-tempo groove, which borders a waltz like feel and crescendos at all the right moments to highlight specific phrasing throughout the song, perfectly allows Johnson to push his raw and honest vocals into each line of the lyrics as he takes us through his shoebox full of Polaroid’s.

“I was 15 when I became a man,” opens the song and sets everything in motion as Johnson then unfolds his family story of how he’d stay out of school to help his grandad on the farm when his dad got sick and how his mama was doing the best that she could to raise him and his brother.

In a very clever way that will have the farm boy/girl reminiscing with him, Johnson paints pictures as he takes us through lines that sing of working the tobacco rows and being up at dawn with the rooster, while proudly looking in the mirror through the chorus from today’s perspective at how much those moments shaped who he is:

“I helped put food on the table when daddy wasn’t able

The dirt made me the man I am today, that’s how I was raised

On hard work and the Lord’s Amazing Grace, is what I will remember

When I look back and see, my turn row memories!”

When an artist uses their songs to not only continually put out solid material, but to also connect their story and personality with the hearts of the listeners, they build an exuberant, diehard fan base who becomes the solid foundation for helping them move through their goals as they navigate ahead their path.

RT Johnson has been an open book all year long and has become so much more than just another artist playing songs on stage…he’s aligned his lyrics in such a crafty way that when you listen to him you feel like you’re simply hanging out with an old friend every time you hit play.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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