NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Jeremy McComb

© 2008 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.Some people are born to perform but they still need a little nudge toward the spotlight to fulfill that destiny. So it was with 8-year-old Jeremy McComb when his father, a full-time musician, pulled him onstage to sing a chorus of "On the Road Again." By age 17 he was on the road, and at 21 was mixing gigs at night with a day job as music director and on-air personality at KIX-96 (KIXZ) in Spokane, Wash. Through his radio job, McComb got to know Larry the Cable Guy, who hired him as his tour manager in 2004. That led to an encounter with J. P. Williams, who signed McComb to his company, Parallel Entertainment, and sent him to Spartanburg, S.C., to record his debut album. Produced by Paul T. Riddle of the original Marshall Tucker Band, My Side of Town showcases McComb's winning ways with a good lyric. His voice invites the listener in, as if to sit and swap a few stories, but can also ratchet up the intensity when the moment demands it. He tracks subtle shifts of feeling on his first single, "This Town Needs a Bar," written by Liz Rose and Jimmy Yeary, with a weary wisdom that's rare among younger singers. The same quality surfaces in the three songs that bear his solo writing credit, one of which, "You're Killin' Me," bids farewell to whiskey as if it were a lover who had scarred him one time too many. It's clever without being cute, a combination that may be difficult to achieve unless you're from McComb's Side of Town.IN HIS OWN WORDSSONG YOU'D SECRETLY LOVE TO COVER "'Over My Head (Cable Car),' by The Fray." BOOK ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND "Where Did I Go Right? You're No One in Hollywood Unless Someone Wants You Dead, by Bernie Brillstein." SONG YOU WISH YOU'D WRITTEN "'Songs about Rain,' by Gary Allan." SOMETHING WE'D NEVER GUESS ABOUT YOU "I like 'Grey's Anatomy.'" LUCKY CHARM"I wear a St. Christopher necklace- it really works."TITLE OF YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY"Sometimes Two Wrongs Do Make a Right."WHEN THEY LOOK BACK ON YOUR LIFE IN 50 YEARS, WHAT YOU HOPE PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU"I hope people say I was compassionate, that I helped more than I hurt and caused more smiles then pain."On the Web: www.jeremymccomb.com