When Rascal Flatts Visited The Wittle White House

It was the year 2000. That's right (as I shake my head) the year 2000.

I was sitting in the WITL Studio at the Wittle White House at 3420 Pine Tree Road expecting this new trio of guys on the Lyric Street label (this was a country record label owned and operated by the Walt Disney Company) to show up for a visit and an on air conversation.

I had their debut single, "Prayin' For Daylight" loaded up and ready to play and after listening to it a few times off the air I frankly thought there was no way that studio tricks weren't involved in producing this song.

The vocals and harmonies were way...too...perfect.

Gary, Joe Don and Jay show up. They were great guys and we had a terrific visit, a great on air conversation and we played their debut single, which I still thought might be a little over produced vocally.

After our on air conversation they were kind enough to ask if they could do anything for the station before they left. The rep from their label who was also in attendance told me that they would be singing the National Anthem at an upcoming sports event and asked me if we ever played that on WITL. Of course we do. The label rep asked me to turn on my studio recorder.

Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney...Rascal Flatts...then walked up to the studio microphone and sang the most perfect version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that to this day I've ever heard. I was obviously wrong about the whole perfect vocals studio tricks thing with their music and I became an instant fan.

Sometimes, I'm glad when I'm (really, really) wrong.

Rascal Flatts will be on tour soon and they will be coming back to Michigan. Get all of that information here.