Exclusive: Dee White Joins Tony Brown, Finds His Voice in New MusicByCindy WattsFebruary 25, 2025 6:00 am
Now 26 years old, Dee White was still learning to be an adult while he was figuring out how to be a country star in 2019. White worked with some of the best in the business. Warner Music Nashville Nashville signed him. Mega manager John Peets was at the helm of White’s career. And Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys produced White’s debut album. But then, like most up-and-coming artists in that era, the Slapout, Alabama, native was slap out of luck. COVID-19 slammed into the world in March of 2020, shutting all in-person entertainment opportunities, and artists had to regroup and figure out what was next. Five years later, White is back with a new professional team and a new traditional sound much truer to his creative heart than his debut album. White’s current single “Heart Talkin” is also the album’s title track, and it is out now. Produced by acclaimed producer Tony Brown, White’s sophomore album Heart Talkin’ will be available June 13.“Dee’s been in town a long time, and I’d heard about him, so I figured I’d check out some demos of just him and a guitar,” Brown said. “The first thing that hit me was his voice—it’s got that Roy Orbison kind of quality to it. It really grabbed me.”
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Tony Brown Compares Dee White to Roy Orbison
White wanted to return to his classic country roots with his sophomore album, and Brown knew how to lean into the style while keeping the sound competitive. White and some of Nashville’s most celebrated studio musicians met, set up in a circle with a microphone in the middle, and started playing. They gelled to the point that what started as an EP quickly turned into an album.“It was a huge leap of faith, but it felt so good that we knew we had to do something,” White said, explaining that Peets was generous enough to back the project financially. White now works with Leslie Fram and Lanny West.
White wanted his sophomore album to be aesthetically and sonically different from his debut – and it is. He quipped he also “did a little living” between the two projects. He believes this project reflects who he is as an artist more effectively because “there are fewer cooks in the kitchen.” In addition, he’s older and unafraid to voice his vision or ideas. “The last thing I wanted to do as an uneducated, green, naive, but not stupid kid was run my mouth and mess something up,” he said. “I didn’t even believe in my own taste at the time. I knew that the people I was working with knew better than I, and I settled on not getting in their way.
Dee White was Shocked Warner Music Nashville Wanted Him
If he’s honest, White is shocked Warner Music Nashville signed him. The label wasn’t involved with the album from its inception and only came aboard after it was complete. When he compared himself to the rest of the artists signed to the label, he felt “very out of place.” “That was an extremely commercial label at the time, and I’m not a very commercial guy,” White said. However, White thinks that since then, his taste in music and popular country music are in line than ever. The album’s title track is a solid example of that convergence, but the singer doesn’t think “Heart Talkin’” is necessarily representative of everything on the album. "What ties all the songs together is the rolling finger style, acoustic guitar, and some of the more honest instrumentation,” he explained. “But there are things, musical aspects that are different about that record, such as the synthesizer and the style of the vocal is slightly different.”
Dee White Channeled Ronnie Dunn
White laughs, saying that he was trying his best to channel Ronnie Dunn at times on the album. The singer wrote or co-wrote every song on the album, including “Heart Talkin’,” which he penned with Sergio Sanchez. Brown said that White’s songwriting is one of the things that impressed him most. “He writes with real depth, and being from Alabama, there’s this strong Southern perspective in his lyrics,” the producer said. “What stood out to me the most was his voice, but when I got him into the studio, there was so much more to discover. ”Next up, White will release “Whiskey Please” on March 3. He describes the title as “a good, straightforward representation of a country song.” “I think that’s a great representation of the group that we had in the studio, from Tony to myself and the players that he called,” White said. “We just made a hard down country record.”
Photo by John Peets
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