Released August 4, 2009 Recorded 2009 Length 2:52 | Format Digital download Genre Country Label Mercury Nashville | |
"A Little More Country Than That" is a debut song written by Joey + Rory's Rory Lee Feek, Wynn Varble and Don Poythress, and recorded by American country music artist Easton Corbin. It was released in August 2009 as the first single from his self-titled debut album. In April 2010, the song reached Number One on the country music charts, making Corbin the first male solo artist in seven years to send a debut single to Number One. It has been certified Gold by the RIAA.
Contents
Content
"A Little More Country Than That" is Corbin's debut release to radio. It is a mid-tempo song featuring accompaniment from acoustic guitar and electric guitar, with fiddle and steel guitar fills. In it, the male narrator lists off various rural themes such as "catching channel cat," each time saying that he is "a little more country than that."
Rory Lee Feek, one-half of the duo Joey + Rory, wrote the song with Don Poythress and Wynn Varble while the three were at a writing retreat held at Mickey Newbury's cabin near Nashville, Tennessee. Poythress began playing a tune on the guitar when Feek suggested the song title "A Little More Country Than That." The song was originally intended to be recorded by Blaine Larsen, but it sat unrecorded for several years before producer Carson Chamberlain heard it and recommended it for Corbin.
Music video
A music video was released for the song on September 17, 2009. Directed by Stephen Shepherd, it depicts Corbin singing and playing guitar in rural areas, as well as scenes of him singing in front of a bonfire at a party.
Reception
Karlie Justus of Engine 145 gave the song a positive review, comparing Corbin's vocals to those of George Strait, and also saying that the song had "organic phrases" and a traditionally country sound. Matt Bjorke of Roughstock also gave a favorable review, saying that it was "refreshing" to hear Corbin's neotraditionalist country influences. Slant Magazine critic Jonathan Keefe was somewhat negative, referring to the song as "a slightly more purposeful variation on an interminable series of rote lists of rural-ish points of reference that Nashville's unambitious go-to songwriters have been attempting to pass off as songs for the past few years."
Chart performance
"A Little More Country Than That" debuted at No. 56 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the chart week ending August 22, 2009. It also debuted at No. 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week ending January 23, 2010.
The song peaked at Number One on the U.S. country singles charts dated for the week ending April 3, 2010, its thirty-second week on that chart. It made Corbin the first solo male artist to send a debut single to Number One since Dierks Bentley's "What Was I Thinkin'" in September 2003, and the first country music artist overall to have a number-one debut single since the Zac Brown Band's "Chicken Fried" in December 2008.