Todd O'Neill - Somewhere Between Bourbon And Beale (2017)

A Louisiana-born country artist with an eclectic style that makes room for R&B and rock & roll influences, Todd O'Neill was born in Hammond, Louisiana in 1982. Todd grew up in a rural community where TV reception was poor, but his family's appreciation of music was strong. O'Neill became a passionate fan of Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Otis Redding, as well as local Cajun music, and by the time he was in his mid-teens he'd learned to play guitar and started to sing. O'Neill formed a band called Big Cat Daddy when he was 17, and by the time he was 20, he'd decided he wanted to make music his career. O'Neill played in a variety of bands, ranging from '80s cover acts to honky tonk country combos, as he learned the ropes of the music business. In 2009, O'Neill had landed a contract with Nashville label Aria Records, who released his debut album, Real Life. A four-song EP, Somethin' with Some Attitude, followed in 2013, and a six-song release, Fast Lane, which featured a duet with T. Graham Brown, was released in 2015. The following year, O'Neill was the grand prize winner of the Nash Next 2016 Challenge, a talent competition judged by Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts, The Voice winner Danielle Bradbery, and Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records. As Nash Next winner, O'Neill received a recording contract with Big Machine, and DeMarcus lent his production expertise to O'Neill's first single for the label, the R&B-influenced "Love Again." ~ Mark Deming