Ronnie Dunn’s Country This: The One in Ten Thousand Syndrome

Ronnie Dunn is a country music legend with as many awards under his belt as road miles. Twice a month he’ll provide his thoughts on country music, the music industry, or life as he sees it in a feature called Ronnie Dunn’s Country This, exclusively on Taste of Country.

The one in ten thousand syndrome … everyone in the house is on their feet but one. Who do you laser in on? Yep, that one. Don’t sweat, it we all do it. We all wanna be accepted. You’re never going to please all the people all the time.

Someone scolded me on Facebook a few days ago, saying that my new songs 'Kiss You There' and 'Country This' weren’t "country enough." My new CD is full of countrier than dirt songs. Radio doesn’t play "countrier than dirt" songs. It's a radio song. You have to get songs on the radio, or you don’t get heard. If you don’t get heard, you don’t get to go out and play all of the other stuff. That said, there’s not a song that I put on a record that I don’t like. Here I sit tryin' to make everybody happy.

I get some decent feedback from people on a few of these sites, especially Facebook. I guess I gravitate to it because I feel like I can have real conversations with people. My publicist (we all have one) and managers encouraged me to try it a few of years ago. They say that it's one generation's TV and radio. I gotta admit, it was a stretch at first. I’m thinking, “Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard don’t tweet." But Merle and Willie do tweet -- yep!

Maybe, we should have two kinds of tweet things? Since everything is about profiling and data mining these days, why can’t we have one for manly men? Lotta people hire other people to do it for them, but I don’t like people putting words in my mouth. Yesterday, I hear that Toby Keith is on the radio talking about the Oklahoma twister, saying that he doesn’t do the tweet thing. He tells the DJ that "Ronnie Dunn tweets like a 13-year-old girl." He's a big 'ol boy. I learned a long time ago that if you’re gonna stay in the room with Toby, you’d better pack a lunch. He’s a tough boot … I got $100 bucks that says he tweets before he goes to bed at night in his camo, footie pajamas. I’ve known him for a long time. We’ve done our fair share of tequila mezcal shots while running up and down the road (with drivers).

"TOOL" or "HAMMER DOWN" …the social site for manly Twitters / tweeters?

Peace Love and Country Music,
Ronnie Dunn #CountryThis

Ronnie Dunn was part of Brooks and Dunn for more than 20 years before embarking into a solo career in 2011. As a duo, Brooks and Dunn won more CMA and ACM Awards than any other act in country music history, including four Entertainer of the Year awards. Dunn is currently working on a new album, the follow-up to the 2011 self-titled project that featured the Grammy-nominated single ‘Cost of Livin” (buy it here). All opinions expressed here are that of Ronnie Dunn himself.