Hot Times At Jake On The Lake

Sony salutes the Gold digital certifications of two Jake Owen hits. Pictured (L-R): Sony SVP Promotion Skip Bishop, SVP Marketing Paul Barnabee, Jake Owen, Assoc. Director Sales Caryl Healey, and VP Promotion RCA Keith Gale.

Jake Owen treated music tastemakers to an afternoon retreat on Tuesday (8/2) at Jake On The Lake. The Nashville press corps and industry execs braved the heat and gathered on Music Row to board buses bound for Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tenn.

At Anchor High Marina, Owen performed songs from his upcoming release Barefoot Blue Jean Night and shared details about the project which has tracks produced by Joey Moi, Rodney Clawson, and Tony Brown. Against a backdrop of sweltering summer heat and squawking ducks on the lake, Owen candidly told about his background and journey to Nashville.

Particularly he spoke about his search for outside songs for his third studio set. For example, the lead single and title track from the pens of Eric Paslay, Dylan Altman and Terry Sawchuk, has turned out to be the fastest rising single of Owen’s career. It lands at No. 7 this week on MusicRow’s CountryBreakout chart.

“I’m from Florida and I ran around barefoot my whole life,” says Owen of the song. “I think all music fans crave authenticity and this song is as realistic as it gets.”

After his performance, Sony execs surprised him with gold digital single plaques for 500,000 downloads of “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” and “Eight Second Ride,” from his previous album Easy Does It.

Guests at the Sony-fest enjoyed a southern smorgasbord of fried chicken, catfish, hushpuppies and coleslaw. Cool drinks were from Island ROX, a new frozen cocktail mixer from the brains behind Dippin’ Dots.

Owen will perform Saturday night (8/6) in Nashville as the special guest on the U.S. leg of Keith Urban’s Get Closer 2011 World Tour.