Brothers Osborne‘s TJ and John Osborne are the new 2021 Ambassadors for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville’s Music Row Build, scheduled for Oct. 2-3.

To show their support for Habitat for Humanity and affordable homeownership opportunities in Nashville, TJ and John will be out on the build site prior to the Music Row Build swinging hammers and helping volunteers construct Habitat’s first townhome community, Sherwood Commons, home to 26 future Habitat homeowners.

Nashville was recently listed as one of five cities on the verge of a housing crisis by 24/7 Wall Street, with more than 70 percent of Nashvillians needing affordable or workforce housing.

“With climbing housing prices, many Nashvillians are priced out of the real estate market. Nashville is home to many creative and diverse communities, and we need to make sure everyone who calls Nashville home, has a home,” says TJ.

“We are excited to help with the Music Row Build this year,” says John. “We were privileged enough to grow up in a stable home in Deale Maryland, where we would have jam sessions with family and friends. We recognize the importance of this and want to do our part to lend a hand with this project.”

Music Row Build began in 2003 and helped eight local families purchase affordable homes before it ended in 2012. Habitat’s Music Row build reignited in 2020 when Mark Brown, senior vice president and GM of Round Hill Music, decided he wanted to do more to help hardworking Nashvillians have equal opportunities to live in the city in which they work. Brown loved the hands-on approach the Habitat program offered for building better futures and working with and getting to know future homeowners.

“Our fundraising goal this year is $60,000. We are incredibly grateful for TJ and John’s help getting the word out about Music Row Build and the need for more affordable homeownership opportunities in Nashville,” says Brown.

WME, a two-year Habitat home sponsor, is joining this year’s Music Row Build. Habitat Board Member and WME Partner and Co-Head Jay Williams says, “A Habitat home build is one of my favorite Nashville things to do. It is so gratifying to get out on the build site and hammer nails and saw 2x4s with the future homeowners. It is a great team building experience as well. The staff looks forward to it every year.”

To support the Music Row Build, text Music Row Build to 44321. For more information on how you can volunteer for the Music Row build, visit: www.habitatnashville.org/Music-Row.

Mercury Nashville Recording artist Travis Denning recently released his sophomore project Dirt Road Down, which provides a well rounded spectrum of Denning’s personality.

With a long song (“Dirt Road Down”), a bar-burner (“Call It Country”), a wise look at life (“I Went Fishin'”), and a tongue-in-cheek ditty Denning is becoming known for (“ABBY”), the ever-charming artist shows off his songwriting chops on the six-song set.

Denning recently spoke with MusicRow about his Dirt Road Down project.

MusicRow: You wrote over 100 songs during the pandemic. Other than your current single, “ABBY,” are the rest of these songs from that period of time?

“Jack And Coke” is an older song. The other four were all pandemic songs.

How did you pick four out of 100 for this project?

I still don’t really know to be honest with you. It’s tough when you’re looking at an EP and you have all these songs that you want to put on there, but for me, it was more about balance. I knew I wanted a show-opener and I wanted a slammin’ song. I also love nostalgic love and heartbreak songs, so that was “Dirt Road Down,” I always try to have a song like that on an EP. And I wanted to put something really personal in there and that was “I Went Fishin’.” So it was more about a checklist of songs that fill these slots in my head for the whole thing.

“ABBY” is currently climbing at country radio. Do you ever notice people in the audience the moment they get that “Abby” is “any body but you?”

Oh yeah. The the first time we ever played it was in Tulsa, Oklahoma with Riley Green. It wasn’t even out yet—it wasn’t going to be out for another couple of months but I was like, “Here’s a new song. Just pay attention to it and you’ll get it.” You see some people get it immediately when I say “any body but you,” but there’s some others [that don’t get it that quickly]. I remember that show just looking at the band and going, “This might be something right here.” Luckily now most people have gotten it, but every now and then I have some people tweet me and say, “Oh my God, I just got this.” I’m like, “Well it’s only been out for two years, but it’s all good.”

“Call It Country” is a jam, and so wordy. Tell me about writing that one with Jessi Alexander and Chris Stevens.

Jessi is one of my best buds in town, especially in the songwriting community. I just walked in there and said, “I don’t want to write anything slower than 120 BPM. I want to write a bar burner.” She immediately was like, “Thank God. I’m so down for that.” Me, her and Chris Stevens actually ran to the gas station and bought beer because we had to have beer for that song. I just wanted it to be very rhythmic, that was the thing. I had the guitar lick right off the bat. I wanted it to be very staccato and very bouncy. So for the melody, I was like “We’re gonna put a lot of words in this bad boy,” and treated the melody more like a rhythm or a pattern or a drum. It adds a layer to that song.

You wrote “Grew Up With A Truck” by yourself.

I partnered with Charles Schwab to debut their giveaway for their PGA tour stop. They called me and asked, “Can you write a truck song?” I was like, “Yeah, I probably can. I think I’ve written about 9,000 of them.” I just sat down and took that as an opportunity to write it myself. I had a lot of time to write it and it was really cool to be in that process of picking at it for a week versus going, “Hey, I’ll meet you at 11 o’clock at this office and we’re going to write this song.” Being able to do it like my idols and heroes, like Neil Young, Gregg Allman and Steve Earl, I got to spend some time and really put every little piece that I can remember from growing up into that song. I’m gonna try to do that more often because I felt like I got a little better at writing.

“I Went Fishin’” was written a few days after you got the news about the Sam Hunt tour that you were supposed to be on was canceled.

It just sucked. It was the realization that COVID wasn’t going anywhere and that we weren’t going to be on the road anytime soon. It was just an overall bummer. I had the title in my phone prior to that because I really fell back in love with fishing when the pandemic hit. I fished a little bit growing up. And truthfully, it’s up there with playing guitar and being a songwriter for me. It’s just something I really love to do. It gives me a lot of joy and happiness.

But even with the headspace I was in after the Sam tour was canceled, I realized I had the opportunity to go out on the boat and do things. I was like, “You know, this sucks and this pandemic is not going anywhere, but I don’t think about it when I’m out there. I just think about trying to catch a damn fish.” It seems so simple, but just that moment of peace, turning the world off, that’s when it all really clicked for me and I realized that for a lot of people, that is what fishing is for. I thought about the times in my life that felt like wouldn’t get better during first heartbreaks and losing the dog I’d had my whole life. I wrote that with Thomas Archer and James McNair, it literally just fell out of us. We all sat there and went, “I think this could be something special.”