Ten-time Grammy nominee Jamey Johnson has signed with Warner Music Nashville and will release the new song “Someday When I’m Old” on Friday.
Johnson signed to Warner Music Nashville through his record label, Big Gassed Records.
“The reason I signed with Warner Music Nashville is Cris Lacy,” he says of the WMN co-chair and co-president. “She is one of my longest-term friends I’ve had in the music business. We started our careers around the same time. She has been a friend to me and has only ever tried to help.”
Lacy puts artists first, he says. “She cares about me being able to put out music,” he says. “She cares that I’m able to participate in my own career. Our conversations are unlike any other conversations I have had with any other label person.”
“For 14 years, those of us in the industry, and fans outside of it, have been begging Jamey Johnson to release another solo studio album,” says Warner Music Nashville’s co-chair and co-president, Cris Lacy. “From day one, we heard the voice of a man driven by conviction, not commerciality. We saw in him our heroes like Johnny, Waylon and Merle. Warner Music Nashville has the great honor of reintroducing this incomparable artist to a worldwide audience...on his terms...proof that great things are worth waiting for!”
On Friday, Johnson releases “Someday When I’m Old,” a song that has remained on his mind since he sang on the song’s demo in 2004. “It was the last demo I sang before I started working with BNA Records,” he says of the song written by Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo and Troy Verges. “Aimee called me back then and she wanted to be able to say she hired me to sing my last demo. When I heard the song, I thought, ‘Wow! That is a great song!’
“That one seems to be exactly where I am right now, thinking about what is to come 20 years down the line, 30 years down the line, if I even make it that long.”
He also released “21 Guns,” “What a View,” “Trudy” and “Sober,” in recent months.
“Sober” has received tremendous critical praise. Music Row’s Robert K. Oermann says, “Johnson remains one of our most towering country vocalists, and this spare, stripped-down track lets him emote magnificently on the ballad… The whole performance rings with honesty and truth.” As Saving Country Music says, “Whether you’re clean or not, ‘Sober’ is the Jamey Johnson song you’ve waited 15 years for.”
Johnson has been called “one of the greatest country singers of our time,” by The Washington Post. His music has garnered international acclaim and is embraced by fans of classic and contemporary country, as well as Americana and mainstream rock.
The Grand Ole Opry member is also widely regarded as one of the greatest country songwriters of his generation. He is one of only two people in the history of country music (along with Kris Kristofferson) to win two Song of the Year awards in the same year--for “Give It Away” and “In Color”--from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.
A consummate storyteller, his songs have been recorded by George Strait, Trace Adkins, Willie Nelson, James Otto, Joe Nichols and others. He is “a first-rate preservationist of classic country songwriting…,” says The New York Times.
His recent prime-time television performances have been widely recognized as the best of the shows, from singing “Georgia on My Mind” in the 2023 CBS special Willie Nelson’s 90th Birthday Celebration and “Angels Among Us” for the 2024 CMT Giants: Alabama to performing “Beer for My Horses” in August with Lainey Wilson for the top-rated NBC special Toby Keith: American Icon and debuting his powerful song, “21 Guns,” during PBS’ National Memorial Day Concert earlier this year.
