For many country radio programmers and Music Row executives, Granger Smith was an unfamiliar name until last year. But the fans knew who he was. Right under Nashville’s nose, the Texas-based singer had built a solid touring business, amassed an impressive social media following and — perhaps even more significantly — scored four No. 1s on the regional Texas music charts.
The singer had a champion in WUBL Atlanta PD Brian Michel, who talked him up to country record executives and was partly responsible for bringing the singer and the fledgling Wheelhouse Records label together, according to Carson James, senior vp promotion for Wheelhouse parent BBR Music Group. By the time Wheelhouse signed Smith and took over promotion of his single, “Backroad Song,” in September 2015, it had already spent eight nonconsecutive weeks in the 50s on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, listed under indie label Pioneer.
After a chart climb lasting another five-and-a-half months that James calls a “hard-fought battle,” the single peaked at No. 1 on the chart published Feb. 16. James credits “the support of all of our radio partners wanting to see Granger with his very first national single and Wheelhouse with its very first national single. A lot of people were certainly pulling for us. We’ve very grateful for that.” The song’s success far exceeded the expectations of even Smith himself, who admits he was just hoping to crack the top 20.
The label had one immediate challenge after signing Smith: He already had a full slate of tour dates booked for the fall, meaning the Wheelhouse team couldn’t put him on a typical radio tour schedule. Instead, they worked around his paying gigs, having the singer fly into markets a day or two early, or stay a day or two after a show, to visit radio in the area.
Early in the life of the record, “Backroad Song” got a big boost when it was simultaneously selected for the artist development spin programs of two major radio chains, iHeart Media’s On the Verge and CBS Radio’s Launch. Those “certainly help you gain some quick notoriety,” says James. Smith was also able to make inroads with radio programmers by showing them photos and videos of packed shows he had recently played in their markets.
“My bass player has been taking a picture of me on the front of the stage for probably about the last four years, every single night,” says Smith. “I have them archived in folders on my phone, so I can access pretty quickly any city and show you ‘Here’s us in front of a crowd in wherever U.S.A.’ That’s what we’re using as ammunition.
“When I was meeting PDs from across the country, not only did I have a date on the books in their town, but we had probably already played there within the last 14 months, and I had a picture on my phone of their town, probably sold out,” he adds.
Both James and Wheelhouse vp national promotion Teddi Bonadies credit Smith and his manager/brother, Tyler Smith, for their business savvy in not only collecting such proof-of-life touring images, but in building the singer’s social media following: Smith has more than 600,000 followers on Facebook and 144,000 Twitter followers.
The single has been steadily selling about 10,000 downloads per week, according to James, and doubled those figures once it reached the top five on the airplay chart, and totals about 185,000 downloads to date, according to Nielsen Music.
Scoring a No. 1 hit with its very first single put Wheelhouse on the map out of the box. Says James, “It gives you instant credibility [for] being able to do it. Every benchmark, every milestone was a huge accomplishment, but [hitting No. 1] just put the exclamation point at the end.”
Bonadies says that working Smith’s project “has been the most wonderful and different new artist launch I have ever worked in my 25-plus years in the business. Everything about this project has been an anomaly.”
“If the Boot Fits” will be the next single from Smith’s eighth studio album and first for Wheelhouse, Remington, due out March 4. Smith says the album will be more of what his fans have come to expect from his music. “It’s not a switch for me,” he says. “You’re not going to hear it and go, ‘Well, this is new and different.’ If you’re already a fan of what I’ve done, then this is kind of right up that alley.”
This article first appeared in Billboard’s Country Update — sign up here.