Joe Nichols' country resurgence aims to take the genre back

46-year-old Rogers, Arkansas, native Joe Nichols is a five-time Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper with gold and platinum albums hanging on his wall. He has survived alcohol and amphetamine addiction, not to mention the ups and downs of a 25-year Nashville country music career.

Yet on a recent bright, Monday morning, Nichols is speaking with The Tennessean while strumming as his smooth, near-baritone tenor resonates throughout an empty two levels of Rippy's Honkytonk in Lower Broadway.

Nichols is stunningly edging towards "Good Day For Living" -- the eponymous single from his 14-month-old tenth studio album -- achieving top-10 status on country radio.

In a full-circle moment, he's doing it with friends he's made throughout his career.

He's signed to Quartz Hill Records, the three-year-old, The Orchard-distributed label co-founded by former Broken Bow Records founder Benny Brown and Nashville songwriter Jason Sellers.

He's now managed by Jake LaGrone, a former Universal South regional radio promotions representative, who counts tour management for Jason Aldean, Lorrie Morgan and more in his catalog of career accomplishments.

Nichols is a stubborn straight-shooter who isn't so much earnest and humble as he is a career artist whose greatest driving desire is to achieve country music industry success comparable to names he counts as mentors, like George Jones and Merle Haggard.

Quartz Hill Records co-founder Brown has been a fan of mainstream, big-budget country music since driving around nationwide as an independent car dealer from 1963-1985. By 1991, he'd invested his earnings in Nashville's Legends Studio, five miles south of Music Row. A half-decade later, he started Broken Bow alongside Paul Brown, which was acquired by Berlin-based BMG in 2017.

If anyone could explain the link from Haggard and Jones to Nichols, it's Brown.

"Joe Nichols is the closest thing to Merle Haggard that you'll ever hear," says the octogenarian executive who originally signed Nichols to Broken Bow subsidiary Red Bow Records in 2012.

"For as many great songs as there are in Nashville, there are relatively few great singers by comparison -- Joe's one of those singers whose voice [conveys] undeniable longevity."

Because Nichols' window of emerging Nashville stardom post-dates the Class of 1989's Clint Black, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Travis Tritt and the emergence of Tim McGraw, plus pre-dates Blake Shelton's 2001 debut single "Austin," he's sometimes neglected by meme-ready digital and social media culture.

However, Sellers adamantly notes that Nichols "is as pure of a country singer as anyone who has ever come to Nashville."

Regarding the point about social media-led notions favored by the country music industry's modern era, Nichols stands alongside artists like Randy Houser (age 47) -- another performer familiar to Benny Brown's time at Broken Bow from 2013-2019 -- representing a crew of artists nearing 50 years of age whose charisma, classic country stylings, ruggedly handsome appeal and musical skill may feel out-moded and out-dated.

"I can't fit in with or rub off the success of 90 percent of the girls and guys on top of country radio," jokes Nichols.

"Luckily for me, when I first arrived in Nashville, I was told to stand out by creating my category for my music."

29-year-old Morgan Wallen's streaming-led insurgence on country superstardom has him earning three top-10 spots on the most recent Country Airplay chart tally. Comparatively, Randy Houser's "Note To Self" peaked in the top 30 and spent 51 weeks on Billboard's radio charts, while Nichols' "Good Day For Living" has spent 56 weeks (and counting) on country radio.

"No matter how much you believe in someone, once they fall out of grace or sight with radio, it's hard ever to bring them back," stated Brown in a 2012 interview.

Brown has faith in Nichols' ability to achieve seemingly impossible success because he fervently believes that authentic country music -- in this case, sounds that are more folk and rock-driven and less inspired by all-genre Hot 100 hip-hop, pop and soul flourishes -- deserves to rediscover its leading space in mainstream conversations.

The legendary executive pauses for a second, then makes a bold statement while laughing.

"I now realize that I changed country music and elevated it to pop's mainstream when I signed Jason Aldean to Broken Bow Records in 2005. Now, with artists like Joe Nichols in 2023, I'm ready to take country music back [to itself]."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Joe Nichols' country resurgence aims to take the genre back