STAR STUDENT Tim Nichols - "Heads Carolina"
I first met STAR STUDENT Tim Nichols in the early 90s when we were both songwriters at Ronnie Milsap’s publishing company. Keith Whitley was already taking his songs to the top of the charts (“I’m Over You” & “Brotherly Love”), just the beginning of a long illustrious career as a hit-maker in Music City.
“Heads Carolina”, co-written by Tim and Mark D. Sanders, was a smash for Jo Dee Messina in 1996, part of a rising tide of wonderful Nashville-based music now known as “90s country”, featuring a full roster of women. I got to ride that wave of fabulous female artists, touring with Pam Tillis, Martina McBride, Tanya Tucker, Sara Evans, & more, including Jo Dee Messina, playing acoustic guitar and singing harmony with her on a slew of killer tunes, closing the show, of course, with “Heads Carolina”.
“Live Like You Were Dying”, co-written with Craig Wiseman and recorded by superstar Tim McGraw, dominated the charts in 2004 and scored multiple awards including a Grammy, continuing Tim’s uninterrupted string of singles for Patty Loveless, Lee Ann Womack, Terri Clark, Reba, Dustin Lynch, Trace Adkins, and countless others. When Tim came for guitar lessons a few years ago, we spent our first lesson working out a medley for his live show because he couldn’t fit all his hits into one set - talk about an embarrassment of riches!
Now Cole Swindell has just won ACM Song of the Year and Single of the Year for “She Had Me at Heads Carolina”, reinventing Tim’s classic tune for a whole new generation of country music fans and adding even more awards to Tim’s lengthy list of accolades. Here is an interesting article in the Washington Post telling the behind-the-scenes story of how the new record came to be.
By the way, we learned “Heads Carolina” in our April Zoom class, “Best Chord Progression Ever - #4”. Jo Dee Messina’s record is in the key of E, so we covered the fingerings for E as well as for D position with the capo on the 2nd fret, plus a brilliant little upside-down capo trick where you can play a D chord but keep the low bass note from the E chord — sometimes you CAN have your cake and eat it, too! Here is the Nashville Numbers chord loop for the entire song - intro, verse, chorus, solo, breakdown, fade, etc:
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