Billy Shaw Jr., a Tucson country singer who proudly describes himself on his Twitter account (@BillyShawJr) asΒ a "fiddle playing song making nerdy athlete just living the dream and singing it out loud," was crowned the Tucson winner of the Nash Next 2016 competition last Wednesday at the Wreck.
Shaw now moves on to the national leg of the contest, competing against Β aspiring country artists from around the country for a shot at recording with Big Machine Label Group βΒ home of Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire and Taylor Swift.
Shaw beat out Tucson's Southern rock-leaning country singer Caiden Brewer and neo-traditional leaning singer Alec Petford. All three were selected as finalists in the local contest after weeks of online voting.
KIIM 99.5 FM hosted the contest as part of a joint project with their parent Nash/Cumulus, the country arm of national radio company Cumulus. Sixty-eight stations participated nationwide. Winners from each will participate as finalists in the national contest, submitting a live performance video of an original song.
Ten finalists will be selected from the lot of semi-finalists to move onto the national championship. They will compete in a live concert in Nashville in late fall and the winner will be selected from a panel of celebrity judges that includes Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta, Kix Brooks and Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts.
The local contest launched in July with online submissions that were voted on by fans. The top three vote-getters participated in last Wednesday's local competition, which I participated in as a judge with KIIM's Mike Harrelson andΒ Keith Rosenblatt. We gave Shaw points for originality in appearance and vocal style. He had a unique way of interpreting a cover song β he didn't try to impersonate the originator but instead found his own slightly nasally voice including on an inventive countrified cover of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me." Click Β here to listen.Β
He also bravely covered Kelsea Ballerini's "Dibs," a song about a girl calling dibs on her man, from his toes to his nose. It's not often you hear a male country singer cover a female singer's hits.
