Country Singer Jamey Johnson's 'In Color' Hit

Songwriter Shares Inspiration for 2009 Grammy-Nominated Country Song

Jan 8, 2009 Lisa L. Rollins

Tunesmith Jamey Johnson knows what it's like to write a top-10 song. But thanks to the Grammy-nominated "In Color," he knows what it's like to record one, too.

In Color, the highest-charting country song of singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson’s recording career, is one that resonates with country music fans who vividly remember the days of black-and-white photographs, when life—while lived “in color”—was commemorated in only two basic hues.

Ranked at No. 9 on the country songs chart of Billboard for the week ending Jan. 10, 2009, In Color was released some 39 weeks ago by Mercury Nashville artist Johnson on his 14-song That Lonesome Song CD, which is nominated for Best Country Album in the 2009 Grammy Awards.

Johnson penned the tune, which is his album’s debut single, with Nashville-based veteran songwriter Lee Thomas Miller and James Otto, another songwriter-turned-successful artist who, like Johnson, found commercial radio and chart success in 2008 with his own Sunset Man disc.

Nashville Songwriting Awards Help Inspire Country Radio Hit

Written about a year-and-a-half ago, the inspiration to pen In Color was “nothing sexy,” said songwriter Miller during a Jan. 6, 2009, interview. Sharing the impetus for the number, Miller credited Johnson with planting the initial seed for the now-hit tune, which is up for Best Country Song in this year's Grammy contest.

Miller, who has written a string of hit songs for artists such as Trace Adkins and Terri Clark, said that during a songwriters’ awards show sponsored by BMI, a number of black-and-white photographs from prior awards shows were shown as part of the evening’s presentation.

During the BMI show, “I told my wife I wish we were sitting with (hit-country songwriter/artist and Country Music Hall of fame member) Bill Anderson,” Miller said, “’cause he’s one of a few people in the room at that time who would know who all the people were (in the old photographs being shown).”

Later, following the BMI songwriting awards, Miller said he shared the same story about the black-and-white slideshow with fellow songwriter Johnson, whose tunesmithing mind, as country-music history can now attest, was already at work and looking for a “hook” to reel in the listener.

Per the Kentucky-born Miller, after listening to him share his tale, “Jamey took a drag off his cigarette and said, ‘There’s your song, hoss. You think that’s something, you should’ve seen it in color.” And from that point, Miller noted, it was “Game over!” and a country tune was in the making.

Hit-Country Song Lyrics Imitate Real Life

Johnson, Miller and Warner Bros. artist Otto teamed to craft the story song, with its reflecting-on-life lyrics that depict hard times, from the cotton fields and the Great Depression, to war, along with its common-thread chorus of A pictures worth a thousand words, but you can’t see what those shades of gray keep covered. You should have seen it in color.

Although the songwriters made up most of the scenarios in the song, one verse in particular is based on Miller’s grandfather, who “was in Germany in World War II,” said Miller, referring to the following verse: Oh and this one here was taken over seas in the middle of hell in 1943, in the winter time you can almost see my breath. That was my tail gunner ole Johnny Magee. He was a high school teacher from New Orleans and he had my back right through the day we left.

Country Music Singers-Songwriters Earn Multiple Grammy Award Nods

The trio of songwriters, from all indications, plan to be in attendance at the 51st Grammy Awards on Feb. 8, 2009, in Los Angeles this year, where Otto, Johnson and Miller are nominated for multiple awards.

Songwriter Miller, in fact, has two songs, In Color and You’re Gonna Miss This, the fastest-rising No. 1 of country star of Trace Adkins' career, nominated in the Best Country Song category.

Regarding his two Grammy nods in a single category, “The (songwriting) competition in this town is so amazing that any success surprises me!” Miller exclaimed. “People have been telling me In Color would get a Grammy nod all year. I thought that sounded crazy when it first came out, but everyone thought it was that kind of song.”

Meanwhile, the Grammy nomination for You’re Gonna Miss This “shocked me not because I don't think it is of that caliber, but because there had been no talk of that one” as a Grammy contender until Miller attended the 2008 Country Music Association Awards, where the song also yielded a nod.

During the CMA event, Miller said, “Somebody said, ‘Hey, I’ll bet Miss This is nominated for a Grammy.’ That was the first time I entertained the thought, but then I couldn't imagine being nominated for two of the five. That is crazy.”

As for what it’s like to have two Grammy nominations in one category, it’s “very surreal,” shared Miller, whose first Grammy nomination came after penning The Impossible by Joe Nichols with co-writer Kelley Lovelace.

“We got to go to the Grammys in 2003 (in New York) with The Impossible,” Miller recalled. “It is one of the coolest things I have ever done, (and) I said then that we would probably never get to do it again. It is so hard to get that nomination. I am still speechless over having two this year … (and) the experience will be awesome. My wife and I have never been to L.A. so that (will be) a new experience as well.”

Sources

Billboard magazine, Hot Country Songs, week ending Jan. 10, 2009. Accessed Jan. 6, 2009, at www.billboard.com.

Personal communication, Lee Thomas Miller, Jan. 6, 2009.

The copyright of the article Country Singer Jamey Johnson's 'In Color' Hit in Country Music is owned by Lisa L. Rollins. Permission to republish Country Singer Jamey Johnson's 'In Color' Hit in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Country singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson	Country singer-songwriter Jamey Johnson	Mercury Nashville artist Jamey Johnson
BMI songwriter Lee Thomas Miller	Songwriter/Warner Bros. artist James Otto