Dean Dillon Wonders ‘Where Are All the Great Songs’ on Country Radio
Legendary songwriter Dean Dillon is not shy about admitting he's not a big fan of a lot of what he's hearing on country radio in recent years.
Dillon, who's written more than 50 songs that have been cut by George Strait, knows a great song when he hears one, and he says that while great songs are still being written all the time in Nashville, he doesn't wind up hearing any of them on the radio.
The songwriter is the man behind Strait hits including "The Chair" and "Marina Del Ray," and he's also written for a wide variety of other artists including Vince Gill and George Jones, among many.
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“You gotta understand, I live, eat, sleep and breathe songs,” Dillon tells Wide Open Country. “Where are all the great songs that I know get written in Nashville?”
He was especially not a fan of bro-country, which he worries has left a permanent footprint in the genre.
"Every song is about the same damn thing," Dillon states. "Daisy Dukes, trucks, beer, lake banks, time, after time, after time, after time. The bro-country thing started 12 years ago, and 12 years later, they’re still singing the same things. Do they not evolve? Get older? Get married? Have kids? Get jobs and shift in society? There’s no movement in it."
Dillon adds that he thinks some of the younger writers in Nashville are smarter than his generation ever was, including his daughter, Jessie Jo Dillon. Even after a long career and all of his success, he finds magic in the creative process in Music City.
"You can sit down in a room with somebody you’ve never met and know nothing about, and three or four hours later you write this great song," he marvels. "How we do it, I don’t know, but it happens every day."
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