"Visitin’ has always been a hard word for me to say," laughed Shane McAnally. Uh-huh. Is that a Mineral Wells thing or is it a Texas-wide affliction? Visiting is a staple of southern summer living so I’d have to guess it’s just a McAnally thing.

"Thanks for checkin’out 2steppin.com," substituted McAnally while taping a promo for the website. He had to do it his way - a McAnally trait that most assuredly IS Texas-wide. The music, not the image, is what’s important for this no-hat, no-boots, no-Wranglers kind of guy (recently featured, ironically, in the May issue of Music City News in a "Young Guns" feature).

Well, let’s talk music. From our perspective, we’re not hearing enough from this energetic, talented newcomer. "I got a record deal pretty quickly. I was only here (in Nashville) for a year. What was really a surprise was how much more time, after signing, I had to wait. I thought if I got a record deal I would be a star in about six months and I’ve had a record deal for about four years now.

"It can take a long time -- waiting your turn There’s a lot of new artists on labels, and when I first came to Curb, LeAnn Rimes wasn’t out yet. JoDee Messina wasn’t out yet. David Kersh wasn’t out yet. I had to wait through all those artists who had been there before me."

McAnally’s first single, the pumped-up pleading, "Say Anything," brought lots of attention. "It hung on the charts forever," McAnally said, "Then, it was a question of whether it was enough to release an album on. There’s so much competition out there right now that the labels want to see some real solid action. There’s no reason to put out an album that’s going to just hang in the '50s."

"It’s cool to come out with something that people are really excited about," McAnally continued, "Then you get that sales boom and people notice it. Like SHeDAISY. They waited until they had a song that was really on fire. They’re selling records!"

McAnally’s second single, "Are Your Eyes Still Blue?" was released to radio in late June. The toe-tapping up-tempo beat belies the plaintive haunting theme. The opening banjo grabs you and the melody never lets you go.

"This is the song that Mike Curb (Curb Records) really pushed for when I kind of persuaded him to do "Say Anything," McAnally said. "He's a very smart man. As a new artist you need something that people like the first time they hear it. With established artists, a song gets played enough that you can learn to like it."

"'Are Your Eyes Still Blue' is really country, said McAnally. "Songs always sound different on the radio (than in the studio). I heard it on the radio and there’s something about it that’s really moving - something that makes you want to hear it all the way through. I’m excited to see how people respond to it. Plus, it’s a really good dancing song."

McAnally came to Nashville wanting to perform, tour and make records but he found that songwriting was the easiest route of entry into the business. Unlike many artists who are urged to write while biding their time until signing a recording contract, McAnally was as serious about his songwriting career as he was about his singing career.

"I wanted to be taken seriously as a songwriter so I presented myself as a songwriter, McAnally reflected. "The recording deal just happened about the same time."I’d go to songwriter nights at the Bluebird Cafe and I’d play my songs just to meet other writers. I’d never written with anyone else, I mean, I’m from Mineral Wells, Texas...

"When you come to Nashville, you don’t even realize how to go about meeting co-writers and things like that. I didn’t. I didn’t even want to co-write when I came to town because I thought that somebody would steal my ideas."Now," McAnally added, "I can hardly write by myself. I don’t ever want to give up a really great hook, waste it on just myself, when someone else might have a completely different angle. Three people wrote 'Are Your Eyes Still Blue.' The more people, the more ideas come out. You make less money but you might have a bigger career."

McAnally’s new CD, on which he wrote or co-wrote most of the tunes, should be out in late summer or early fall. "I don’t think anybody else’s record sounds like mine, McAnally said. "I met someone who wanted to produce, who, when he heard me sing, had an idea about the sound he wanted to create. I did too."

"We have influences from everywhere, from Marty Robbins to Sting. The cool thing about the album is that we wanted to keep it simple vocally and try to stay intimate. The intimate vocals tie all the songs together. It's like you’re sitting in the room with me. I think we really hit on something different."

So...until the new CD is released listen for McAnally’s new single on your local radio station. And, in the spirit of things, thanks for "visitin" you’all (y’all, y'awl...) -- Can’t write it or say it (must be a northern thing?!).

Mountain West Music 2002