Joe Nichols Releases Good Day For Living

Singer Felt No Pressure While Recording 10th Studio Album

Written by Vernell Hackett
Joe Nichols Releases Good Day For Living

Joe Nichols releases his 10th studio album, Good Day For Living, on Friday (February 11), an album recorded during the pandemic when things were turned upside down for many people. Nichols found that being off the road gave him the opportunity to take his time in recording this latest project.

“For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel any pressure,” Nichols says. “I’m the type of person who’s always striving for more, but I’ve reached a place where I’m grateful for everything I’ve accomplished so far. It’s been such a good run. I feel at peace, and that has freed me up to make new music that’s very honest.”

Honesty is a thread that runs in the singer’s music. From his first hits, “The Impossible” and “Brokenheartsville” to “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” and “Gimmie That Girl,” “Sunny and 75” and “Homerun,” the Arkansas native has never wavered from his love of traditional country music when he goes in to record.

“I’m one of those guys set in my ways, old school country, and I’ve been that way since I started in music,” Nichols says. “The expectation of me is I’m a country guy and that is what I expect of myself. In that sense it makes it easier for me to be able to do what I do.”

Nichols admits there are times when people have suggested that he might want to try going in a different direction or jump on a new trend in country music. That’s not his style and it has been easy for him to say no. “I think It’s always enticing for everybody to see what is hot right now and say this record is hot and maybe we can do something similar to that. You might have those conversations with a producer or a songwriter, it just naturally happens. For me there is already this expectation that I am a country guy, and at this point in the game there’s not much changing that. I’m not a kid that changes with the times.”

Lucky for him, producers Mickey Jack Cones and Derek George, who worked with him on his 2013 album Crickets, know exactly what the singer is and the kind of music he wants to record. “They are phenomenal producers, they are so gifted,” Nichols says.  “Musically they are extremely diligent. Mickey spends a lot of time in the studio studying a lot of stuff, getting words out of me that I struggle with. Derek built a dynamic great sounding track. They work so well together, and they commit so much time to it that it works.”

The new album is already creating excitement from folks who have had the good fortune to hear it before its release.  From the first cut on the album, “Brokenhearted,” penned by Rhett Akins, Marv Green and John Thomas Harding,” which laments the fact that there “ain’t no cryin’ in your beer, ain’t no she walked out the door, ain’t nobody brokenhearted anymore in country music anymore,” you know this Nichols album will be filled with great country songs sung by one of the greatest singers in country music.

The second cut, “I Got Friends That Do,” is a duet featuring Blake Shelton, and it’s a drinkin’ song from the first line. Shelton is the perfect choice to compliment Nichols on this tune, written by Dancik Dupelle, Tebey Ottoh and Jimmy Thow.” It’s a cool song about the friends you know that don’t hesitate to say yes when you’re ready to go out drinking.

“When I heard the song I thought ‘That’s a hit’,” Nichols says. “It’s a fun song, it’s got that country groove, and it’s well written, like Alan Jackson’s ‘Chattahoochee.’ It is hard to find songs like that. When we cut this, it was a no brainer; it’s country and fits me. As we talked about it over the next few weeks, people kept saying this might be a fun duet with Blake. I called him and he was all in and it went from there. I did both verses, sent it to him and said, ‘Tell me what you can do.’ We shared ideas over the phone and then he cut his part and sent it back to me. He was really great about it.”

Nichols gets serious with the second single from the album, “Home Run,” penned by Ashley Gorley, Dallas Davidson and Ross Copperman, which addressed the realization that we’ve been away from home way too long. He sings not about baseball, but the need to make a ‘home run’ to go back and visit friends, family and places he hasn’t been in a long time.

The singer talked about finding the song and releasing it last year around the opening of Major League Baseball season. “The first thing is people were getting into the baseball mode, and it was a clever thing for the writers to throw in something we need right now, which is going back to home, whatever that home is.  

“When I first heard it the song reminded me of me, of being in the music rat race, always making yourself available to do anything I could possibly do. Trying to do everything people want you to do is spirituality and emotionally draining. That is what it meant to me, it’s ok to hug your kids and your wife and forget about that all the other stuff. Then moving into what we’ve been through in the last few year, the song took on another meaning too.”

Nichols says it isn’t hard for him to find songs that fit into his love of traditional country, and he gives the head of his Quartz Hill Records labeI, Benny Brown, credit for having the heart to find good songs. “Benny is a great song guy which is rare quality,” Nichols says. “Most of time you have particular people that have song awareness and others who have business and rarely do those match. Benny is both.”

It was Brown who brought the song “She Was” to Nichols. Written by Neal Lee Coty and Jimmy Edward Melton, it is a poignant song about losing a person who has been in your life for a long time. “Benny called me and said he had a song he wanted me to hear. It is a special song to me because it reminds me of his wife, who recently passed away. They had such a love story and the song is really special to him. After I heard it I said, ‘You have to let me cut that one’.”

Sometimes a song comes along that seems like it was written about you. Such was the case with “That’s How I Grew Up,” created by Steven McMorran, Josh London and Adam Craig. When an artist is getting ready to record, they have song meetings where they may listen to as many as 200 songs within a few hours. It’s not unusual for those songs to start sounding the same after the artist has been listening for awhile. When Nichols heard this song in one of those meetings, he knew he had to record it.

“I thought they wrote this song about me,” he says of the tune with lyrics about going against the grain, losing the one who got away, sitting in the back pew at church, learning the hard way, but not wanting to change anything about his life. “Some songs do that, and if I’ve ever heard a song written about me before, this is it. ‘The Impossible’ was like that, and several others over the years felt like they were written for me. Sometimes a writer will pitch a song to me and say ‘I had you in mind when I wrote this,’ and that’s a big compliment.”

The new single, “Good Day For Living,” which is all about no matter what is going on, it’s a good day to be alive, has one of those stories with a unique twist to it. “One of the great things about this album was I reunited with my good friend Dave Cohen, who played piano for me when he first came to town. He had become quite the session player over the years, and he was session leader on one of the last sessions we did for this album.

“One of the producers brought in this song and said it was a real fun song with a catchy hook and he thought we should listen to it if we had any extra time that day. We listened to it and it sounded like a hit. Again, something you don’t see very often, happy and country and uplifting songs like Alan Jackson did.”

“After we listened to the song and decided to record it, Dave told us that he had written it with Bobby Hambrick and Neil Mason. He said, ‘There’s no way this is happening!’ It was so amazing, him starting with me in my band when he got to Nashville and now we cut one of his songs and it’s the new single and the title cut for the album.”

Now that the album is out, Nichols is back on the road, doing a few dates these next few months and getting even busier in June and July. “We had a couple days rehearsals in Nashville before we hit the road, and I think my voice sounds better than it has in years.  I wasn’t out on the road while we were recording the album and trying to squeeze in the recording sessions between concert dates. I think that really helped me because for the first time in years I felt no fatigue in my voice.”

Nichols says his standard for an album that it be filled with good songs, not a few good ones and then others you want to skip over. “I I feel like I have one of those albums with this one. I don’t think there are any songs on here you are going to want to skip over.”

The singer says he sees more of an acceptance for authentic country music these days. “That’s a great place to be,” he points out. “Not that music that’s not traditional is not good or great, but it is good to see that all forms of country music are being accepted again. We get lost in what matters the most in country music, and it’s the fans. To have guys like Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton and other people have success in country music tells me that the country fans are there, and they are ready to buy the music when it’s out there.”

Good Day For Living 2022 Tour


2/12 – Dixie National Livestock & Rodeo Show – Jackson, MS
2/24 – Mazatzal Hotel & Casino – Payson, AZ
3/4 – Apache Casino Hotel – Lawton, OK
3/5 – Silver Saloon – Terrell, TX
3/19 – West Plains Civic Center – West Plains, MO 
3/24 – The Windjammer – Isle of Palms, SC
3/25 – Cedartown Performing Arts Center – Cedartown, GA
3/26 – Opp Rattlesnake Rodeo – Opp, AL
4/2 – The Whiskey Baron Dance Hall & Saloon – Colorado Springs, CO
4/3 – The Dirty Bourbon – Albuquerque, NM
4/14 – Hard Rock Hotel & Casino – Tulsa, OK
4/15 – Cherokee Casino – Roland, OK 
4/21 – SEVEN Bar – West Siloam Springs, OK
4/22 – Country River Club – Tyler, TX
4/23 – The Backyard Amphitheatre – Fredericksburg, TX
5/28 – Brat Fest – Madison, WI
5/29 – Wildhogs Saloon – Walford, IA.
7/1 –  Freedom Rally  – Algona, IA
7/2 – Rich Hill’s 4th of July Celebration – Rich Hill, MO
7/8 – Huntley Homesteader Days 2022 – Huntley, MT
7/9 – The Newberry – Great Falls, MT
7/13 – Farm Tech Fest 2022 – Loyal, WI
7/14 – Knox County Fair – Galesburg, IL
8/26 – Lake Fanny Hoe-Down – Copper Harbor, MI
8/27 – Country In The Burg Festival – Cedarburg, WI
9/24 – Hazzardfest 2022 – Greeneville, TN