I'll never forget the first time I met Chris Young. He was the freshly minted winner of the television talent competition show called "Nashville Star". Remember that series on the USA Network? He was brought to a station visit with WITL in the old Wittle White House. Record companies in Nashville often do that with brand new artists. They are called "Radio Tours" and it's a chance for the new artists to sit down and meet with radio station staffs and programmers and quite often the artist will perform some songs acoustically during the visit.

But back to Chris, so this first visit to Lansing was around 2006 or 2007, and while he was a really nice guy, you could kind of tell that this whole country singer thing and doing on air interviews felt pretty new to him.

Well it wasn't new for very long. A little later after Chris' station visit, we were at a NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway. Banana Don Jefferson and Stephanie McCoy were hosting their pre-race show that day and Chris was going to come by for an interview as he was to sing the National Anthem before the race. I was sitting there thinking, "I hope he feels more comfortable on the air this time with those guys".

Enter Chris Young with his record label representative. He sits down, puts on his headphones, mics go live and we're on! So then what happens?

Out of the gate Banana and Stephanie ask Chris, "Hey what is the one thing that is most important when you're standing there in front of all of those people singing the National Anthem?"

Chris' reply? "Don't suck"...

And he brought the house down...The rest of the conversation was terrific and you could tell that Chris Young had achieved a level of comfort and along the way he has achieved a level of stardom that he, and we enjoy to this day.

According to the DTE Energy Music Theatre Facebook page, unfortunately now Chris Young fans won't be able to see him in concert, which was scheduled for the 28th of this month. The reason of course the COVID-19 pandemic.

Get more info here from the DTE Energy Music Theater Facebook page and be sure to check the gallery out below of some great Michigan concerts from the past.

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A Look Back At Some Great Country Concerts

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