Ronnie Dunn - Re-Dunn (2020)

Ronnie Dunn has had plenty of occasions to look back on his two-decade run of hits with Brooks & Dunn. The duo reunited for a flashy Vegas show, made an album revisiting their best-known numbers with a new generation of guests, and got inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. But Dunn wasn’t finished looking back: On Re-Dunn, he reinterprets 24 songs that preceded his early-’90s fame and reflect the listening habits and live repertoire from his formative years on the Texas and Oklahoma club circuits. “I wanted to put something down, almost selfishly, to define the music and songs that are involved with—I hate using this term because it sounds so heady and very un-country-singerish—my musical DNA,” he tells Apple Music. Since Dunn built his Nashville reputation on hard-rocking modern honky-tonk, it’s hardly surprising that his taste in covers spans traditional country, country rock, soft rock, pop, and R&B. What they have in common is comfortably solid grooves. Altogether, they showcase his leathery depth and discernment as a singer. What's clear is that Dunn relished shifting the spotlight from his commercial legacy to his musical sensibilities and memories, as did the seasoned studio musicians he handpicked for the project. “Some of them would inevitably start telling some story about someone they knew that played on the record, or an experience that they'd had on the personal level, and they just added fuel to the fire,” he recalls. Here are the stories behind eight of the classics he covered on Re-Dunn.