Recommendations of the Editorial team
Buy me a boat? That was 2015. This year, Country – at least a few of its leading men – are leaving the fishing boats and pontoons and heading for the relaxing waters of Yacht Rock.
On Friday, Keith Urban released his 13th album, “Flow State,” a collection of covers of classics like “Steal Away,” “Summer Breeze” and “Just the Two of Us” – featuring Little Big Town, John Mayer and the master of smoothing himself, Michael McDonald. It was co-produced by Dann Huff, who played as a session musician on some of the most influential yacht rock records in the 80s. Urban said the project came about as an accidental antidote to the stress of our times – and yes, you get that: who hasn’t calmed their hearts with a little Doobie Brothers after a breakup in turbulent times? Urban certainly does.
He’s not the only one in Nashville fascinated by yacht rock right now. Songs like Morgan Wallen’s “7 Summers” brought these laid-back West Coast vamps to country radio. And last month, Lady As Charles Kelley launched the show “Y’all Aboard” on SiriusXM Yacht Rock Radio, where he spins his favorite smooth tracks with guests like Russell Dickerson, Dustin Lynch, Trisha Yearwood and more. The goal, he wrote in an Instagram post, was to show that country music “has a lot more in common than you think” with the genre that is primarily associated with laid-back poolside listening, R&B tones and jazzy riffs.
Country meets smooth
“Honestly, I think people would be surprised at how many country artists are obsessed with yacht rock,” Kelley agrees ROLLING STONE. “There’s just something comforting about this music. The themes are a lot about ‘lost love’ and ‘how I treated my wife wrong’ – that’s pretty consistent with classic country. Even some of those complex chord structures are reminiscent of older country. But mostly it’s escapism. It’s feel-good music, pure good vibes, the stuff you play on the beach. Country artists don’t necessarily talk about it much, but yacht rock is one of those genres that I come across all the time. Everyone loves it.”
While Kelley hasn’t announced a yacht-rock project yet, he did recently release a new single with Maren Morris – a more adult contemporary reinterpretation of his song “Can’t Be Alone Tonight.” With crisp production, flowing keys and precise harmonies, this is definitely yacht-adjacent.
This raises a question: Is mature country-pop simply an inland cousin of yacht rock? Kelley’s theory that the genres overlap more than you think is actually pretty accurate – assuming you’re not too narrow in your definition (which, to be fair, many yacht rock connoisseurs are). Artists like Ronnie Milsap and Jimmy Webb move effortlessly in both worlds – the website and podcast Yacht or Nyacht gives Milsap’s “Where Do the Nights Go” a score of 60.5.
Nashville and the wharf
Many others borrow the bridge’s aesthetic, Kenny Chesney and Zac Brown Band for example. Dolly Parton has one of the highest-rated Nashville entries on Yacht or Nyacht: her 1980 “Some Old Fool,” which also has plenty of disco influences — a combination that’s currently enjoying its own twangy renaissance thanks to Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert and more. And this fall, anyone traveling to Old Dominion’s Moon Crush Beach Vacation Festival can look forward to a set from the Nashville Yacht Club Band, who bill themselves as the city’s premier destination for Seventies and Eighties cover bands.
“We’ve been playing at Scoreboard in Music Valley monthly for a few years now,” says Nashville Yacht Club band leader Jay Barclay. “It’s a very traditional country venue, so I honestly wasn’t sure how it would be received when they approached us with the idea. But it’s been a huge success. People just can’t get enough of these songs. They provide a little escape from the stresses of everyday life.”
So where does Urban land on the yacht-or-yacht scale? “We yacht rock guys are pretty picky about defining yacht rock, as anyone who has seen the HBO documentary knows,” says “Hollywood” Steve Huey, host of the “Yacht or Nyacht” podcast. “The tracklisting is about half songs that we consider to be true yacht rock, and half songs that most people consider to be yacht rock, but don’t really have the jazz/R&B/Steely Dan influence that we think is necessary for the term. With the genuine yacht rock songs, I’m impressed by the sense of groove that’s palpable. It’s not just soft and mellow – it’s more to the core of what this music used to be than some other recent revival attempts I’ve heard.”
Urban: Not a country artist?
“If I didn’t know it was Keith Urban,” Huey continues, “I wouldn’t have guessed that this was a country artist – aside from an occasional vocal twang on the real Yacht songs.”
Yacht or not: Urban seems in his element on “Flow State” – a terrain where he can solo uninhibitedly and let the production shine as much as his heart desires. Urban has only sounded vaguely country-like for a while now, and the languorous quality of “Magnet and Steel” with beautiful harmonies from Little Big Town works really well.
In April he joined Yacht Rock Revue – arguably the undisputed kings of yacht rock revivals – at a concert in Georgia and played two songs with them. And at CMA Fest in Nashville earlier this month, he brought McDonald on stage for a joint performance of “We Go Back” at Nissan Stadium and looked like he was having the time of his life. Whether “Y’llacht Rock” will become a new genre remains to be seen. Then again – maybe it was always there.