Meet the Songwriter Under The Black Hat Mr. Dalton Black

Just by looking at singer-songwriter Dalton Black, you can tell that he is a true classic country music with a lot of desire and passion for the genre. The East Tennessee native recently released his debut single “Never the Same” in early April and any fan of traditional country music will certainly cling to this song. Black is one of many artists attempting to bring the genre back to its roots and keep pop out of the country scene. He is personally not a fan of the new-age of country music and believes that the pop-country obsession currently taking over Nashville should be classified in its own genre. His opinions are understandable considering country legends Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings are his major influences, both of which he has paid homage to by wearing black clothing almost daily, and having Jennings’ famous emblem tattooed on his upper wrist area.

With legendary artists like Cash and Jennings as major influences to Black, he has a difficult time finding more modern artists to listen to. Instead of listening to the mainstream pop based country artists, he prefers artists like Cody Jinks, Chris Stapleton and Eric Church, all of which have an outlaw charisma to them.

When asked about moving to Nashville, Black stated that it has become his new home with endless amounts of obstacles and opportunities. Since moving there, he quickly discovered that if you want to succeed in Nashville, you better be ready to step up and take advantage of all the opportunities presented to you. From simply coming up with ideas for a song, to actually going to the studio to record, lots of hard work is put into making music and Black did not realize this until he stepped foot into the Country music capital. “Fans listen to songs on the radio, but they don’t see the hard work going on behind the scenes in Nashville.”

He came to Nashville as a songwriter, and he will have a lot of time to continue writing, as the 23 year old will be recovering from a broken collarbone, as well as undergoing an open heart surgery. This is a 6-month recovery process and during that time he hopes he can write multiple new tracks to record. His debut single Never The Same” was written by himself and is a testament to how naturally gifted Black is as a songwriter. He says that it’s essentially a break up song but was not written to portray his personal love life. He wrote it late one night Nashville in less than an hour after playing around with a few words that he had stored away in the notebooks and diaries full of thoughts and ideas that he has had.

Along with promoting his first single, he hopes the rest of 2018 is a huge year for growth. Not only will he be promoting his debut single, he will also release another song later in the year, continuing to push his songwriting and singing abilities. Because of the surgery, he will be gone from his new home of for around 3 months but has performances scheduled in Nashville leading up to the operation including a showcase at The Stillery During CMA Festival. Dalton Black signed to Heart Songs Records in 2017.

To learn more about Dalton Black, you can follow his journey on www.daltonblack.com