All right, very good.
As promised, we are very lucky to have Josh Turner with us now.
Usually when we do interviews with big artists, we did Scotty McCurry after he's on American Idol.
We did Matthew Ramsey before they became big, but this is the opposite.
This guy's already big, but so we're very fortunate to jump on and talk to Josh Turner.
Josh, good morning to you.
Good morning.
How are you?
Good.
Thanks for joining us.
We appreciate it.
I know our time is limited, so I'm going to jump right in, Josh, and just talk about you have such a distinct voice.
And when was it?
Was it at five years old, 12 years old?
When did puberty kick in?
And God bless you with that beautiful booming voice that you have, Josh.
Uh, it was probably, you know, the, after the second time I went through puberty, um, you know, and, uh, but I always tell people, I always joke too that, uh, you know, the first, the first song that I ever sang was, uh, you know, when I was like one year old and I sang tonight, the bottle let me down.
Um, but, uh, but no, it, it's, uh, it's been something
that has kind of evolved over the years.
I had injured my voice in 1996, right after I graduated high school.
And I just thought all my hopes of becoming a singer and having a record deal were crushed.
And that led me to, ironically, Nashville for the first time I went to the Vanderbilt Voice Clinic to kind of figure out what I needed to do.
And so I went through a lot of vocal training and rehabilitation and
just learning how to use my voice properly and how to take care of it.
And so it was a blessing in disguise because it sustained me through 25 years of grueling schedules.
So
I always love to hear about that while moment for people who have had success.
And when was that moment in your career where you just like in your brain, you're just like, you know what, I think, I think this may work.
This, I may be able to make some money at this.
This is a big thing.
Yeah, you know, it's funny you asked that because if you asked my first business manager, my first two years of being an artist, he always said that I was worthless.
Because we would go in and have our annual reports and I would be in the red.
So that was not good, but we made it through those tough years.
Finally started, you know, getting in the black and so it was, you know, just kind of figuring things out and figuring out, you know, how to make business decisions, not just musical decisions.
So it was a learning experience.
I had to kind of learn on my own.
Nobody ever told me that I was going to have to be my own boss or be a businessman.
And so I just kind of had to.
Kind of had to figure it out as I went.
Yeah.
Your man long bat black trains probably my, my favorite list.
But let's talk about the 25 years and really 20 years of your real big CD album.
But you got some special things coming up that people who enjoy your music may get it, may get a kick out of and celebrating your, your 20, 25 years, right?
Yeah.
You know, like I say, we, we've got a 20th anniversary edition of the Orman album, which, you know, was.
was kind of a high stakes album for me.
I was still riding home through the success of my debut record, Long Black Train, but following up a platinum record is no easy task.
And so we took that very seriously and worked very hard to make sure that this record was everything that it could be.
And here we are 20 years later, fans have really enjoyed this record and made this music a part of their life.
And so we wanted to kind of give back to them.
and give them something they can kind of sink their teeth into.
So it's got previously unreleased tracks.
I rewrote the liner notes yet again and we've got new packaging and remastered 180 gram vinyl that was completely produced and manufactured in Nashville, Tennessee.
So yeah, it's pretty cool.
People can go to JoshTurner.com and check out all that's available.
Yeah, I think the new one comes out on Friday and you're still staying busy.
You're still busy and steady.
and concerts you'd you still find a lot of joy in that in the live concert stuff Josh.
Oh yeah yeah I love you know going out on stage in front of my fans and just hearing them sing back to me and you know just see them have a good time so you know when they see me having fun you know they're they're more likely to have fun so I continue to enjoy it and just glad that I'm physically capable of doing it.
Who's that who's that big artist that
you were on stage with or maybe you followed on stage where you pinched yourself and just say what am i what am i doing on stage with this artist who was that moment in your career
uh that could be several but i'd have to say randy travis or john anderson you know those two guys were you know the top of the top for me and and i just uh they epitomized epitomized what country music really was and and so uh
Yeah.
Not only, you know, doing career stuff with them, but being friends with them has always just been something special for me.
And so, yeah, I owe a lot to those two guys.
Josh, we appreciate your music.
We appreciate your time and we appreciate the message and your songs too.
So thank you so much for taking time to join us.
What's the webs again?
Josh Turner dot, what was that again?
Josh Turner dot com.
It's a very original website name.
Appreciate you very much, Josh.
Thanks for taking time.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you.
You betcha.
Josh Turner, you know him.
Long, long black train, I think is my, uh, is my favorite.
He just, he just really hits on long black train.
He hits the bull.
The second I love his answer, puberty.
The
second time
he hit puberty, but it sounds like he had some vocal issues there.
And, and, uh, he was concerned whether his career was going to last or make it.
And then that.
issue he had with his voice is one of the reasons why it is the way it abnormally debits.
So cool.
would be,
Yeah, and he may.
All the Christmas music that country artists do, there might be one out there.
We're gonna have to look for that one.
So thanks to Josh Turner.
That was cool to get to talk to.
try to condense it because I could go 30 minutes with him.
know he's doing a lot of interviews promoting his new release at JoshTurner.com.
So we get it.
We get it.
He's literally been doing this for like two and a half hours already this morning with stations all across the country.
But
appreciate the little time we
Shout out to Josh and his team Josh Turner com for those upcoming pieces of merch and access to 20-year editions of the your man album I don't want to think about that number But congratulations to the man who who made it all happen through talent, but also a lot of hard work Exactly talent talent only gets you so far.
That's hard work in action right there coming up on 905 You're listening in 98 Q country 98.3 FM W CQM on the civic media radio network.
You'll hear from us again soon, but we've got top of the
our updates for you next on 98Q Country.