Three award-winning songwriters, who between them have multiple gold and platinum albums, showcase a mixture of their country, country rock, and traditional country songs.

15 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Traditional Country, COUNTRY: Contemporary Country

Show all album songs: Just Outside Nashville Songs


Details:
Songwriters Kent Maxson, Michael Jarrett, and David MacKechnie have between them multiple Gold and Platinum albums and have either written with, or had their songs recorded by such major artists as: Kenny Rogers, Elvis Presley, Gary Allan, John Denver, Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, The Hues Corporation, Kin Vassy, Jennifer Holiday, Billy Preston, and Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. Their group âRogue,â is made up of some of the finest studio musicians in Nashville. The concept of their debut CD is simple. Make it about the song. The back of their CD might say it best:

Just outside the city thereâs a patch of dirt thatâs been there for well over a hundred years. A friend of mine calls it âThe Karat Patch,â

Itâs a garden filled with thousands and thousands of songs about every aspect of our lives; a garden planted and tilled by writers and ghosts of writers from everywhere across this land.

Out of this garden of songs, only a few will be picked and taken to the city. The rest lay ripe and wait their time.

This album contains a handful of those songs and is dedicated to all our fellow caretakers who continue to plant in this patch of dirt somewhereâ¦Just Outside Nashville

The following snippets tell you the stories behind some of the songs and how these talented songwriters created musical pictures of Americana.

WHITTLERâS CORNER

In High School and college I used to work for the Albertsonâs grocery store chain. Early every morning at every Albertsonâs (or at least it seemed that way) a group of older men would show up at the delicatessen area to drink coffee and discuss the problems of the world. I tried to take my break at that time every morning so I could eavesdrop on their conversations. I used to get a kick out of the overly simple, razor sharp, to the point wisdom these men possessed. At one of my first writing sessions with Kim Williams I shared this story. My idea was to call it âOld Manâs Cornerâ but Kim came up with a better title, âWhittlerâs Corner.â

A BLUE SKY OVER RED RIVER

My family and I were driving through the night from Nashville back to my wifeâs home in Kansas. That day, before we had left, I had been in a writing session with Garth Brooks and I came away from that session worried about him. He was just starting to hit it big and the ugly side of fame was starting to attack him. I wanted to write a song that would somehow bring him a little peace of mind. When I write a song it almost always starts with the âhookâ. So as I drove I was trying to find the âhookâ that would unleash the story I wanted to tell. I knew that Garth was from Oklahoma so I knew I wanted something about Oklahoma in the âhook.â

I grew up in Texas and my grandparents lived in Kansas. As a kid we would travel from Texas to Kansas every summer. We obviously had to travel through Oklahoma to get to my grandparents house and that meant crossing the Red River. As I struggled to come up with a âhookâ about Oklahoma my mind kept coming back to the Red River. As I was thinking about the Red River the sun started to come up in the sky and that is when it hit me âA Blue Sky Over Red Riverâ.

I took the hook to my first writing session with Kent Blazy. Kent is the ultimate songwriting pro. In one short hour session the song was written. I always liked the song but it never seemed quite right. Ten years later David Mac Kechnie and I were digging through our song writing vaults and I came across the song again. David fell in love with the idea but also felt it wasnât quite done. We spent the next two days polishing it up. I think the three of us finally got it right.

IâM COMING BACK AS A DOG

David MacKechnie lives in Oregon and I live in Texas. We try to get together at least twice a year and dedicate our time solely to the task of writing. It was Davidâs turn to come to Texas where we would spend a week writing, and then make our long trek to Nashville. We were both very tired and struggling to come up with a good hook that we could agree on. At the peak of our frustrations I looked over on the floor and saw our dog, Shelby. Shelby was not worried about anything. David and I looked at each other at almost the same instant and both said, âI want to be a dog.â That is what started us on the journey for âIâm Coming Back As A Dog.â

David wanted to make sure that what we wrote was a âwork songâ and not just a bar song. I wanted to make sure that it was fun. We had the lyrics completed by the time we arrived in Nashville. We were scheduled to have a writing session with Thom Hardwell within the first couple of days of our trip. We thought this song would be right up Thomâs alley so we took in the lyrics with an idea of what we wanted to do musically and Thom helped us finish it up. It is one of my personal favorites.

HOT WATER

I often try to think of âhooksâ while I am driving. One day while driving I was trying to come up with hooks that had an oxymoron within them. I doubt if what I came up with counts as an oxymoron, but I liked the picture that it painted. I called MacKechnie when I got home and we started working on it long distance. We had the lyrics finished by the time we hooked up for our trip to Nashville, but we were struggling with getting the right feel for the song. We hooked up with Phil Sweetland one night at a bar and the grove hit us. Phil hacked out some chords on my portable âroll-up piano,â I snapped my fingers and started whaling a bluesy off key vocal and David captured it all on my portable 4-track recorder. We then took this less than perfect demo to Jay Vernâs place to see if Jay could help us salvage âthe hitâ that we knew was there. âHot Waterâ was 6 months of fighting over lyrics, and a moment in time between 3 friends having a blast, and a music producer who found the magic.

THE LOVE SONG THAT I PROMISED

I am married to a Saint. If you have every seen the show âBeauty and the Geekâ then you have a picture of what my wife puts up with. Soâ¦â¦ one year for Valentineâs Day I found the perfect card to give my wife. I am paraphrasing but the card said something like, âIt was not hard to find a card that says âI Love Youâ. Then when you opened up the card it said, âIt just took a life time to find the right person to send it to.â This was the inspiration for âThe Love Song That I Promised.â

MacKechnie and I knew that there was a song somewhere in this idea. Over the years I have made several trips to Oregon. After trying to write this song on nearly all of these trips we decided we were not leaving the room until we figured out how to make it work. Throw in a little Michael Jarrett magic, a little cranberry juice and vodka, shake it up a little bit and you have a song.

TIJUANA, OKLAHOMA

My wifeâs family owns a small cabin on the Grand Lake of the Cherokee in Oklahoma. My wifeâs mother and her siblings, my wife and her siblings, my children and now my grandchildren have spent many wonderful days on this beautiful lake. I fell in love with it the first time I went there (on my honeymoon, but that is another story).

Over close to the dam on highway 28 there is a wide place in the road called âTijuana, Oklahoma.â When we go to Grand Lake there are no telephones, no computers, and no worries. MacKechnie and Jarrett helped me to capture my little place in paradise.

BECKY STANDARD TIME

My wifeâs name is, Becky. She is from a very small town in Kansas. Where she grew up you could walk out the front door and be anywhere in the town within 5 minutes. She still operates that way today even if the town we live in has 2 or 3 million people in it and the place that we need to be at is over 30 miles away. This observation was the inspiration for âBecky Standard Time.â I took this âhookâ into my first writing session with Thom Hardwell. We hit it off and had a blast writing this song. The song was originally written from the male point of view. I happened to play it for Bob Doyle on one of my trips to Nashville and he suggested that we write it from the womanâs point of view. As soon as he said it I knew he was right, and so we made the changes.

WE KNEW THE BOOK

I receive a small Bible Study devotional every day on the internet. One of the devotionals told the story of a man who didnât just know the book, he knew the author. I shared this idea with MacKechnie who had just lost a close friend, Marc Chaput who was that man. MacKechnie poured his heart and soul into this one. Michael and I went along for the ride. This is one of those songs that you are just grateful to place your name on it with your friends.

DIRT

When I lived in Nashville I would often try to explain to people what Midland, Texas was like. I would usually say something like, âIt is flat and everywhere you look you see cactus, mesquite, rattlesnakes, tarantulas and dust. Gosh, I get homesick just thinking about it.â I would get a small chuckle from people but in my heart I knew there was some truth in this statement. I came to believe that no matter where you are raised it is special. Your values are shaped at home and your best friends will almost always be the friends you grew up with. At least that is how it is with me.

Kin Vassy and I shared an office at Studio 19 in Nashville. I came in one day and told him that I wanted to write a song about âDirtâ and that the song was about the values you learn at home no matter what home really looks like. We wrote âDirtâ in about 30 minutes. This writing session is one of my favorite memories of Kin. We laughed the whole time and came away with a great song.

LITTLE WHITE CROSSES

Mac Kechnie often served time as a volunteer fireman. One winter night David was the first one on the scene and found a 22-year-old girl and her sports car wrapped around a tree. That image stuck with him for a long time and from it came the need to start a song. About a year after that he called me up and said that a friend of his, Sam Steverson, had an idea for a song. David sent me the first lyrics for âLittle White Crossesâ shortly after that. I started to work on the music. I found a groove that I really liked but the lyrics to the chorus did not fit with my melody. I did a small lyrical change that David did not forgive me for for about 3 months. On my next trip to Oregon MacKechnie, Sam and I got together in the same room and âcompromisedâ on what we thought the song should be.

Not long after that I went to Nashville to record the demo. By the time the song was finished there was another song on the radio called âThree Wooden Crosses.â Needless to say this little song was not going to be recorded for awhile.

COUNTRY MUSIC (Three Chords and the Truth)

Most everyone knows that this title came from Harlan Howard. A friend of mine in New York told me this line and said that he thought it would be a great country song. At the time I did not know it was already a songâ¦.. I just thought it was a great line. MacKechnie and I started to work on it and somewhere in the writing process we discovered that the title had been used twice before and been a hit both times. We were too far along to stop and so we finished it. When we looked at the previous songs with this title we felt ours was a different song. We are not saying it is better, we are saying it is different.

We offer our apologies to anyone who takes offence to our use of this title. We felt like our version could stand on its own, and that it was a great song to âwrap upâ our album.