"Small Town" a big hit for country rookie

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Justin Moore knows of what he speaks, sings and writes.

The Poyen, Ark., native's current single, "Small Town USA," which extols the virtues of down-home living, just rose to No. 18 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. "It's pretty autobiographical," Moore says of the song, which waxes poetic about Saturday nights, Sunday mornings and dirt roads and name-checks Hank Williams Jr.

Moore's self-titled debut album is due August 11 on Big Machine Records/Valory Music. Moore, who wrote or co-wrote nine of the 10 tracks, describes his music as what would happen if one put "Alabama's lyrics with Lynyrd Skynyrd's melodies."

Moore, who grew up on Southern rock and old-school country, last year hit the road with heroes Williams and Skynyrd. "Not to be cliche," he says, "but it was a dream come true."

Although Moore has been singing since the age of 2, his move to Nashville wasn't preordained. As a teenager, he sang with his uncle's Southern rock band, which he "really fell in love with." But he was also a better-than-average high school baseball player who was offered a scholarship to play in college. After attending college for two weeks, Moore went to Nashville. "I wanted to play music for a living," he says.

He eventually signed a publishing deal, even though he'd never written a song. "Writing is something I'd not even thought about until I moved to town," he says. "I was looking for songs to cut and not finding anything. So I thought, 'I'll write them myself.'"

But writing for Big Picture Publishing wasn't paying the bills. "I was keeping all the songs for myself," Moore says. "I did some crappy jobs; even sold meat out of the back of my truck."

Moore then connected with producer Jeremy Stover, who worked with country singer Jack Ingram and introduced him to Big Machine/Valory Music founder Scott Borchetta. "Scott told me, 'If you'll be patient, I'll give you a record deal,'" Moore says. "Three or four years later, here we are."

(Editing by Dean Gooodman at Reuters)

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