This week, Chris Young will celebrate two career milestones.

Tonight (Oct. 17), Brad Paisley will induct Young as the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry. On Friday (Oct. 20), his seventh RCA Nashville album, Losing Sleep, releases.

Little over a decade has passed since the Murfreesboro, Tennessee native with the resonant baritone made his debut appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, shortly after winning the fourth edition of Nashville Star and earning a label deal in 2006. However, Young has been working toward the goal of becoming an Opry member, not to mention a full-fledged country star, for most of his life, through countless performances, television appearances, autograph signings, albums and more.

For Losing Sleep, Young returned to the producer’s chair for the new album, marking his third project to co-produce alongside Corey Crowder.

“The more records we do together, me and Corey have become not only better friends, but we both feed off each other creatively and we complement each other in many ways,” Young says. “I can’t tell you how much time he spent on the drum sounds on this album, just finding new samples and stuff we were layering underneath what Miles McPherson did.”

With this album, for the first time, Young earned co-writing credits on every single track.

“The coolest part is that it is very low-stress which for me leads to being very creative,” Young says. “When I feel I don’t have anything pressing down on us and we have the songs, time and crew we want in the studio, it makes a difference.”

“Losing Sleep” was one of the earliest-penned tracks on the new album, written soon after the project’s predecessor, I’m Comin’ Over, released in 2015. The track also represents perhaps the album’s biggest sonic progression. “It is probably the most pop production of any song I’ve done,” Young says, “ and it’s paired with my really traditional voice.”

In the studio, Young is as precise with his production as he is with his resonant baritone.

“I spent a lot of time on mixes. There are so many little details where the bulk of your time gets spent. We spent a full session on each individual song, so just three hours on the tracking process with the guys in the room. We have a lot of fun doing that, but it’s the amount of emails exchanged like, ‘Hey at 33 seconds on this track, I know we had a different pass on said instrument, and I’d love to hear that.’ Or, ‘Hey, I can hear this is an actual piano and the pedaling is too hard on this pass. Do we have something else to replace that?’ Just little things like that take a song from the raw parts of it to where it’s ready for people to hear it and on radio.”

Young assembled the same players from his previous album, including Derek Wells, McPherson, Carl Miner, Dave Cohen, Tony Lucido, and Terry Crisp, who also plays steel guitar for Young on the road.

While its predecessor I’m Comin’ Over featured two hit collaborations—Vince Gill (“Sober Saturday Night”) and Cassadee Pope (“Think Of You”)—Young’s talents stay front and center throughout the new project.

“There was the discussion of, ‘We had a lot of success with bringing people in on the last album.’ But with this record, there wasn’t anything that really made sense, and I wasn’t going to force it if it wasn’t there.”

This time around, his neo-traditional sound captures a relationship in its various stages, from promising beginnings to mournful swan song. The project ends with the gorgeous “Blacked Out,” co-written with Jon Randall and Josh Hoge.

“I still love making a record that you can listen to start to finish, and sequencing is such a huge part of that,” Young says. “I do like that ‘Where I Go When I Drink’ is track 5 and track 10 is ‘Blacked Out.’ The middle of it is kind of a breather, spatially, with those two tracks as opposed to a lot of other stuff on the album. But also, it’s like a point-counterpoint with ‘Losing Sleep.’ Starting with that and ending with ‘Blacked Out.’”

Losing Sleep Track Listing
“Losing Sleep” – Chris Young, Chris DeStefano, Josh Hoge
“Hangin’ On” – Chris Young, Corey Crowder, Josh Hoge
“Holiday” – Chris Young, Cary Barlowe, Johnny Bulford, Corey Crowder
“Radio And The Rain” – Chris Young, Corey Crowder, Josh Hoge
“Where I Go When I Drink” – Chris Young, Tyler Reeve, Trent Tomlinson
“She’s Got A Way” – Chris Young, Cary Barlowe, Corey Crowder
“Leave Me Wanting More” – Chris Young, Corey Crowder, John Pierce
“Trouble Looking” – Chris Young, Corey Crowder, Liz Rose
“Woke Up Like This” – Chris Young, Corey Crowder, Josh Hoge
“Blacked Out” – Chris Young, Josh Hoge, Jon Randall

Best Buddies Tennessee will host an intimate songwriters round featuring Desmond Child and Keb’ Mo’, along with guest appearances from Amy Grant, TnT Duo and more to be announced soon, on Nov. 2 at the Franklin Theater.

All proceeds from the show will benefit Best Buddies, a non-profit that provides opportunities to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through one-to-one friendships and supported employment. The event is being sponsored by Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Regions Bank and Carrabba’s Italian Grille.

Leadership Music invites all of Music Row for its 2nd annual Leadership Music Food Truck Friday on Friday, Oct. 27.

Organized by Leadership Music’s Alumni Committee, chaired by Julie Boos and Lane Wilson, the event will be held from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the Curb College of Entertainment and Music Parking lot, located at 34 Music Sq. E.

Food Truck Friday will include fare from four food providers: Flavor Caters (hot chicken, brisket sandwiches), Et Voila (po’boys, crepes and French cuisine), Bare Naked Bagels (authentic NY bagel sandwiches) and Deep South Pie Company (baked sweet and savory hand pies).

Guests should bring their appetites, as well as cash or debit card to purchase food from the food trucks. Tables and chairs will be provided.

Everyone is welcomed to attend.

Kent Blazy called Nashville’s The Bluebird Café “a place of magic and miracles” as he joined superstar Garth Brooks, Victoria Shaw, Pat Alger and Tony Arata Tuesday night for an exclusive, secret writers’ round at the tiny, 90-seat music club where Brooks was discovered nearly 30 years ago.

The writers’ round celebrated the Nov. 14 release of the first volume in Brooks’ upcoming five-part, multi-media anthology. Part I: The First Five Years chronicles Brooks’ ascent to stardom, as he released his first five albums for Capitol Nashville from 1989-1993.

For approximately and hour-and-a-half at The Bluebird, Brooks and his fellow songwriters swapped stories behind several of Brooks’ songs, both hits and album tracks, along with acoustic renditions.

Blazy recalled first meeting Brooks for a co-write at the request of Bob Doyle. The resulting song, titled “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” would appear on Brooks’ debut 1989 album, making it Blazy’s first cut after moving to Nashville—as well as the first No. 1 hit for both Blazy and Brooks.

Arata had a similar tale with another hit from the same album, “The Dance,” which would become his first cut and first No. 1 song. Later in the set, Arata recalled being bullied as a young boy, and how a song he wrote about the experience, “Face to Face,” wound up on Brooks’ The Chase album.

“There’s many forms of revenge,” Arata quipped.

Shaw performed “She’s Every Woman,” and recalled co-writing “The River” with Brooks in a house in East Nashville. Shaw took the lead during a performance of “The River,” with Brooks chiming in on the bridge.

“I tried to talk him out of using the word ‘vessel,’” said Shaw.

“But try singing it with the word ‘boat,’” Brooks shot back.

Alger reminisced about penning the then-controversial Brooks classic, “The Thunder Rolls.”

“I had an office in the basement, no windows, kind of like a dungeon,” Alger said. “But when I wrote with Garth, Allen Reynolds would let us write upstairs.”

Alger, who in addition to co-writing, also played guitar on the track, noted that Brooks had listened to Kathy Mattea’s “Like A Hurricane,” and found inspiration for a cheating tune from the line But in my heart there’s a thunder rolling/storm of love that was untrue.

Alger and Brooks recalled that the song’s famous “third verse” was crafted after taking advice from Jerry Crutchfield. “He said, ‘Get back on that song. Somebody needs to die,’” recalls Brooks. “And we wrote the third verse. Now everybody asks for the third verse.”

Alger took the lead on “The Thunder Rolls” during the writers’ round, offering both vocals and elegant guitar work. He also contributed “What She’s Doing Now.”

Multiple times throught the evening, all the writers paid tribute to their late co-writer, Kim Williams.

“There will always be an empty seat here for Kim Williams,” Brooks said. Blazy and Brooks performed songs co-written with Williams, including “What Never Happened (Is What I’ll Never Forget),” “Cold Shoulder,” from Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind album, and invited the crowd to sing along with the Brooks classic “Ain’t Goin’ Down (Til The Sun Comes Up),” all done acoustically.

“That might be the slowest you’ve done that one,” Blazy said.

Brooks concluded the writers’ round with “The Dance.”

“Looking back, I just felt blessed to play here and play songs with my friends, “Arata said. “I still feel blessed to sit with friends in the Bluebird and play songs.”

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Bluebird, Brooks announced a documentary about The Bluebird Café is currently in the works. Then Brooks, now a seven-time Diamond-certified artist who is the reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year, 10 years following his previous CMA Entertainer win, stayed after the show to sign autographs and take photos with a small group of lucky radio listeners outside the Bluebird Cafe.