Supplied
Shy Carter
You may not know the name Shy Carter yet, but you already know his music.
The Memphis native has scored chart-topping songs, multi-Platinum hits, and even GRAMMY nominations as a songwriter and producer. From Charlie Puth’s epic hit “One Call Away” to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s “Speak to a Girl,” Kane Brown’s “Heaven” and Billy Currington’s “It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To,” Carter has been cranking out hits for more than a decade. Now he’s bringing some “love” to country music as an artist. His debut single, “Good Love,” a summer-ready feel-good bop is already proving he’s poised for onstage success. With a summer anthem on his hands and a bright future ahead, we caught up with Carter to talk musical influences, artistic endeavors, and why “Good Love” is so important right now.
Shy Carter
Supplied
Age: 35
A mix tape of early influences: I spent my formative years in Memphis, and I loved R&B. I started a little R&B group and we used to sing Boyz II Men songs. And then I got into the Southern rap scene—people like 8Ball & MJG, Ludacris, Nelly. But my parents were playing a whole lot of Van Morrison and Tracy Chapman—those were my mom’s favorites. My dad was always playing Curtis Mayfield and a lot of Christian music like Clay Cross and DC Talk. That was actually my first concert!
His first taste of success: When I was about 11 or 12 my uncle got me a keyboard that had a lot of premade beats on it, so I would make silly little raps and stuff to those. At 16 I was working at Sears and there was a guy there who had a studio in his apartment and I started going over there to make beats and people started to like what I was doing. As I was graduating college, I learned to run the studio, so I got free studio time. I ended up getting a song on the radio by accident. That got me some meetings and I met Nelly. He signed me as a producer, somebody to make tracks and sing the hooks, so I started working with him and with Ashanti and all kinds of R&B and rap acts. I learned a lot from him. But I wanted to branch out into real songwriting. I was hearing songs with more guitar, like Jason Mraz, and I got hooked up with Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20. We wrote “Someday” which was a number one song, so that’s how I got my first real hit.
A dream come true: I had been coming to Nashville to see my girl who was living here, and her uncle was playing country music and I started to really love it. To me, it was like Van Morrison or Tracy Chapman. You could hear R&B influences in country music, you could hear the blues, it had soul. You could also tell real stories—you could tell a beautiful love story. It didn’t have to be edgy. I started to really study country music. I drove from California to Atlanta and all I did was listen to it—all the old stuff, all the ’90s country, just hits after hits. Eventually Kevin Griffin (Better Than Ezra) and I hooked up and writing and one day I started beatboxing on the track. That ended up being “Stuck Like Glue” by Sugarland and bam, I had my dream come true.
An artist all along: I was an artist from the beginning, but when I met Nelly he would have me sing the hooks then he’d take me off and put a big star on, so I decided ok, I’ll be the songwriter. I’ll be the producer. But then the artist [interest] kicked back up—I signed deals with some record companies and met with L.A. Reid and Jimmy Iovine. I didn’t end up doing the deal with L.A. Reid, but Meghan Trainor did. She and I had really connected in Nashville and she put me on her debut album. The only features were John Legend and me, so that was a real moment.
Love for “Good Love”: I officially moved to Nashville and was getting meetings with great writers who wanted to write for me as opposed to me writing a song and pitching it. My brother came out to visit and he, James Slater, and Carlo Colasacco came out to my house in the country. My brother had this beat going, James was on the piano, Carlo was on the guitar. We started talking about life and love and loss and I knew we had something special and that song came out. It’s so relatable and the times I’ve performed it just was like a bubble of joy, making people feel good. Then the coronavirus happened, and the world really needed good love. And now that even more crazy stuff has happened since then, it just felt like this song was right on time.
Speaking his truth: I felt like the whole world was speaking [on racism] so I didn’t feel the need at first. It felt like things were different—a lot of people were speaking up that normally wouldn’t. But people around me knew that I had an opinion, so I decided I’d just say how I feel. You don’t want to make somebody upset, so I just wanted to say, “Hi. I see you.” My father’s black and my mother’s white, so I’ve always been in the middle of an America that was divided, but I didn’t understand it because in my house it wasn’t divided. And I’m glad I spoke because it was a perspective that maybe people hadn’t seen yet, and it added to the conversation.