Chris Young has become a pillar in the country genre with his distinctive baritone and memorable 

storytelling. Since signing his record deal with RCA Nashville at the age of 20, the multi-platinum 

artist, one of Billboard’s top country artists of the decade, has amassed over five billion career 

streams and 13 No. 1 hits, eleven as a songwriter. Now, Young has entered an exciting new 

chapter with an expanded version of his eighth studio album – Famous Friends (Deluxe Edition). 

A traditionalist who continues to push the genre forward with modern production, adept 

songwriting and captivating collaborations, Young reflects on his hometown crew on the charttopping 

title track lead single with an assist from real-life friend and labelmate Kane Brown. The 

anthemic ode to his hometown has Young shining a light on his own friends with soaring guitar 

features and a pounding beat that will excel in the live setting. 

Written with frequent collaborators Cary Barlowe and Corey Crowder while at a headline tour 

stop several years ago, the double-platinum “Famous Friends” has Young name-dropping real 

friends in his life. The three songwriters had already penned “Raised On Country” that weekend 

and after catching Young’s live show, Barlowe and Crowder wanted to capture the crowd’s 

energy and the singer’s electricity onstage. Young embraced the idea and says the song gives him 

the ability to share how he grew up. He later sent the song to Brown who loved what he heard, 

and Young suggested a collaboration on “Famous Friends.” 

“He and I are good buddies and being able to have that history together, it comes off as totally 

real – because it is,” Young says of Brown adding his vocals to the track. 

Capping 2021 as Billboard’s Country Airplay Song of the year, “Famous Friends” took home 

Collaborative Video of the Year at the 2021 CMT Music Awards and earned 3 Country Music 

Association Awards nominations, 7 Academy of Country Music Awards nominations and his first 

American Music Awards and iHeart Radio Music Awards nods. It has Young mentioning 

Rutherford County, the area where he grew up in Tennessee, and Brown’s hometown of 

Hamilton County before singing of their current locale – Nashville’s Davidson County. “It means 

a lot because it’s honest and it’s the truth,” Young says of the autobiographical lyrics. “Being able 

to sneak something like that into a song, that’s a piece of me.” 

Young’s many famous friends are featured throughout the album. In addition to Brown on 

“Famous Friends,” Lauren Alaina, Old Dominion, Jimmie Allen, Cassadee Pope and Mitchell 

Tenpenny each collaborate with the singer on the 20-track project. Co-writers Sarah Buxton and 

Hillary Lindsey also provide backing vocals. 

“There are so many incredibly talented artists, writers and producers who made this album 

possible,” Young, who served as producer alongside Crowder, Mark Holman and Chris DeStefano, 

explains. “Having friends lend their vocals to songs they were a part of was only natural for an 

album titled Famous Friends.” 

Alaina’s vocal talent and captivating energy complement Young’s memorable baritone on the 

nostalgic breakup anthem “Town Ain’t Big Enough.” Meanwhile, Tenpenny’s assist on the 

introspective “At the End of a Bar” – Young’s 13th chart-topper — further elevates the project. 

Young and Tenpenny wrote “At the End of a Bar” with DeStefano in February 2021 during a 

Nashville snowstorm where most of the city was shut down. It was Tenpenny who suggested the 

song’s title. 

“It’s a true testament to never skip a day of work because you never know what you might write,” 

Young says. “It’s also a hell of a lot of fun to sing, and Mitchell Tenpenny and I had entirely too 

much fun stacking vocals on this, so we had to make it a duet.” 

Young has had an impressive track record with duets as his previous 2016 collaborations – “Sober 

Saturday Night” with Vince Gill and the Grammy nominated “Think of You” with Cassadee Pope 

– both reached No. 1. The success of those songs as well as his next two chart toppers, “Losing 

Sleep” and “Hangin’ On,” kept Young on the road as headliner for several years. In 2019, Young 

sold nearly 500,000 tickets throughout his Raised On Country World Tour playing for fans in three 

countries. 

The singer is no stranger to putting himself into his songs, whether in the writing room or on the 

stage. The deeply personal “Drowning,” released in 2019, was written about a close friend Young 

lost several years ago. He and co-writers Crowder and Josh Hoge were each thinking about 

someone they lost too soon when they sat down to pen the song. The poignant music video for 

“Drowning,” in which Young made his directorial debut, includes people sharing photos of loved 

ones they’ve lost. 

His live performance of “Drowning” from CMT Artists of the Year in 2019 struck a major chord 

with country fans and garnered the singer his first-ever award for CMT Performance of the Year 

at the fan-voted 2020 CMT Music Awards. Young’s award-winning performance happened when 

he stepped in to perform for Brown, who lost his drummer Kenny Dixon in a car crash days before 

the awards show. 

“I wrote ‘Drowning’ about a friend of mine, Adam, who passed away,” Young said in his 

acceptance speech. “Kane had just tragically lost a really close friend of his and that was really 

the meaning of this song. It was a really difficult moment for me to get up there and play that 

knowing that he was watching and knowing everything he was going through.” 

Young, who frequented writers rounds and sought out co-writers to work with before moving to 

Nashville in 2006, gets just as much joy out of songwriting as he does touring. Songs like album 

opener “Raised On Country” embody the best of both worlds for the singer as he says the upbeat 

track encompasses what his live show is while also allowing him to tip his hat to his influences 

including Joe Diffie, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and George Strait, who he name-drops in the 

song. In fact, Strait serves as a bookend to the album as final track “Tonight We’re Dancing” also 

mentions the singer. “It wasn’t deliberate at all, but it’s definitely amazing to have a nod to one 

of my biggest influences opening and closing an album this important to me,” Young says. 

The late Diffie, who passed away in 2020, was the first artist to reach out to Young and thank the 

singer for mentioning him in “Raised On Country.” “He was one of the people that I grew up 

listening to and loved his voice,” Young says of Diffie. “Songs like ‘Pickup Man’ are fun and 

everybody knows all the words to that, and then to be able to turn around and give you ‘Ships 

That Don’t Come In.’ The breadth of what he was able to do as an artist was always really cool.” 

It is this same musical breadth that Young showcases on Famous Friends as “Raised On Country” 

and “Drowning” demonstrate the emotional spectrum of the project. “Those are very different 

songs,” Young, who has over 13 million singles sold and 24 R.I.A.A. Gold, Platinum and Multi- 

Platinum certifications, says. “You might have something fun and anthemic that name-drops a 

whole bunch of people that I grew up listening to and then on the other end of the spectrum you 

have something that is very deeply personal and talking about losing somebody too soon.” 

Additional album highlights include the vivid and vulnerable “Rescue Me,” which serves as a twist 

on the typical love song, and “Cross Every Line,” the only track on Famous Friends that Young 

didn’t write. “That first verse hooked me, and the rest of the song never let go,” he says of the 

latter penned by Lindsey, David Garcia and Chase McGill. “Whenever I think, ‘I wish I wrote this 

one,’ I know it’s time to cut it.” 

Young has remained a mainstay on country radio since his first No. 1 in 2009 with “Gettin’ You 

Home (The Black Dress Song).” Written with Kent Blazy and Cory Batten, the song is a staple in 

Young’s live show and one of his favorites to perform. While the steamy ballad marks Young’s 

upward trajectory within the country genre, other career highlights include being asked to 

become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 2017 and selling out Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena 

in 2018. And in 2021, Young received a Tennessee Music Pathways marker in his hometown of 

Murfreesboro, TN, installed on the Middle Tennessee State University campus outside the newly 

renovated Chris Young Café, a learning lab and live entertainment venue that bears his name. 

With the release his eighth studio album, Famous Friends, the 36-year-old singer and Tennessee 

native nostalgically reflects on his past while optimistically looking forward to his future. 

“I’ve been very lucky that all this stuff has happened to me at this point in my career. It just makes 

me want to work harder for whatever’s going to come next,” he says. “I think there’s a whole lot 

for me to look forward to with the next step and what the next chapter is for me as an artist. 

Hopefully it blows people away.”