Tracy Lawrence Reflects on Working with Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan & More on New Album

Tracy Lawrence brings his hit-filled past into the present with help from Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Easton Corbin, Chris Young and many others on his new album Good Ole Days. The collaborative collection features Lawrence reviving classic hits such as “Time Marches On,” “Alibis” and “Paint Me a Birmingham” with an all-star cast of friends as well as serving up two new songs with Craig Morgan, Big & Rich and 3 Doors Down frontman Brad Arnold.

“We started off with a couple of guys who I felt were really pivotal for this record and one was Tim,” Lawrence says of Tim McGraw who duets with him on the opening track “Time Marches On.” “He and I have been friends for a long time. We’ve worked on projects together, so Tim was one of the first calls that I made. Jason [Aldean] was very important because Jason and I had become friends over the last several years. I knew what a big fan of mine that he was and I wanted him to have an opportunity to pick whatever song he wanted early on.”

Young joins Lawrence for a high octane revival of “If the Good Die Young,” which was the fourth consecutive No. 1 single from Lawrence’s 1993 sophomore album Alibis. “Chris Young and I have known each other for a long time,” Lawrence says. “He was actually the house band at Cowboy’s in Arlington [Texas], which is a big ole nightclub that I used to play all the time, so Chris has opened up for me a lot. We’ve shared the stage later on and he is actually on the same management company I’m on too, so we’ve had the chance to get to know each other a little bit more. He wanted to do an up-tempo and he actually played this when he was in the house band at Cowboys. That was the cool thing about a lot of these guys when they came into the studio… They didn’t even have to take the lyric in there when they did their vocals on this record. They knew them. Chris knew this song. He had his own little inflections that he’d worked out because he’d been singing it a long time and that made it special.”

Luke Bryan joins Lawrence on “Sticks and Stones,” the title track of his 1991 debut album, which became his first No. 1 single. Lawrence admits his teenage daughters Keagan and Skylar were excited about Luke recording with their dad. “He has a very good voice and he’s very quick in the studio. He’s a very talented guy. He’s too sweet for his own good is what he is,” Lawrence says with a grin. “My girls were so goo-goo over him. We were actually on our way to vacation the morning Luke recorded. We were heading out to Orange Beach [Alabama] and that was the only time Luke could get in. We got him in the studio that morning and we all showed up as a family looking like the Griswolds [from the Chevy Chase movie National Lampoon’s Vacation] heading down to the theme park packed up with our rack on the back and everything, so the girls were there. They got to get their picture with Luke and they were oh so excited. He was very gracious. He was very sweet to them.”

Tracy Lawrence, Good Ole Days; Photo courtesy Splash Publicity

Also included on the project is country newcomer Luke Combs, who lends his vocals to “If the World Had a Front Porch.” Lawrence met Combs through radio personalities Big D and Bubba and is incredibly humbled to have had such an impact on the rising star.

“Luke and I have become friends and so now I found out what a true hardcore fan of my music and what a big influence I was on him. To know that I’ve had this kind of influence on these younger guys that are coming in is really, it’s actually been a little overwhelming for me,” Lawrence admits.

Kellie Pickler is the lone female on the testosterone-driven project. She duets with Lawrence on his 1996 hit “Stars Over Texas.” “I was actually watching ‘Pickler and Ben’ this morning, her new talk show. She has such a fun, quirky personality and she’s such a sweet girl. I love her voice,” he says. “She came in and did an amazing job. She was so sweet in the studio and wonderful to work with. It all turned out really good.”

The new duets stay faithful to Lawrence’s original hits and he says that’s the way his collaborators wanted it. “I have to give credit to the artists who agreed to be on this record because we specifically asked them if they wanted to make it a little more progressive and basically across the board everybody said, ‘No, I might play a little more progressive in the things I do and the way I’m taking my career, but I don’t want to mess with these,’” Lawrence relates. “They were that special to them and that meant a lot to me.”

Good Ole Days also features two new songs, including the title track. “I love the lyric because it was reflective and we could make a really edgy track out of it and make it contemporary,” Lawrence says, “so it encompassed everything this record was about. It is nostalgic, but is really fun and contemporary.”

“Good Ole Days” features Big & Rich and Brad Arnold, lead singer of the rock band 3 Doors Down. “Brad is one of my dearest friends. He and I have known each other for the longest time,” Lawrence says. “We met doing charity work. He’s one of the few rock guys that I’ve met that really cares about things like the people in the country world do and he and I have been friends for a long time.”

Big & Rich also add their spark to the song. “Being able to sit in the studio and watch the chemistry and the way those guys put things together, they brought such a personality to the record that wasn’t there,” Lawrence notes. “They were the last ones to sing. Brad and I already done our parts, but when they came in and put that Big and Rich thing that they do, it just took it to another level.”

The other new song, “Finally Home,” features Craig Morgan and a portion of the proceeds are going to Operation FINALLY HOME, a national, non-profit organization providing mortgage-free, custom-built homes to wounded, ill and injured veterans or their widows. “Management found this song ‘Finally Home’…As we got into the project, I had done my vocal on it, we got to the end and I told my managers, ‘You know this is the only song on the whole record that doesn’t have a duet on it. We really need to finish this song.’ And then I found out that Craig was the celebrity spokesperson for [Operation] Finally Home, so we reached out to him. He and I have been friends for a long time. We were actually labelmates on Atlantic [Records] at the end of the 90’s, so we’ve known each other for a long time.”

Lawrence can’t say enough great things about Morgan’s powerful performance on the song. “I saw the emotion come out in him. The lyric really hit him hard when he got in the studio,” he says. “You can hear that emotion in his voice; that moves me so much when I see an artist like that that. You know that they are really feeling and visually seeing in their mind exactly what that lyric is speaking. He connected with that song in a way that I thought was really magical.”

Lawrence is excited about Good Ole Days and appreciates the fellow artists that have joined him on the record. Reviving his best-loved hits with longtime friends and some new pals was a labor of love for Lawrence. “I still love it, plain and simple, still do,” he says of making music. “I’ve jokingly said this all along and my heart still truly believes this: ‘I’m a lifer.’ When the weekend rolls around, I’m supposed to be on stage somewhere.”