Morgan Wallen began his career at The Voice in 2014 when he became part of Adam Levin’s team (after being stolen from Usher’s team).
Although he didn’t win and was eliminated in the playoffs, that was the point where he began to gain recognition – and was glad he didn’t win.
“I didn’t even know what the Voice was,” when he was selected to the Observer list. “This whole experience gave me a little push.”
“It was a big first step – I think it was the first time in my life that I realized that maybe I have a chance to do this,” he added before saying, “I am grateful I didn’t win. because it gave me a chance, a couple of years after this show, to understand who I am as an artist and to gather the right team around me. When I got there, I had no idea what I was doing. “
Morgan Wallen cleverly bridged the gap between the Florida Georgia Line and Sam Hunt by developing a bro-country style that emphasized the flowing rhythms of R&B rather than the arena. Wallen still sang a lot of happy hour songs and “Whiskey Glasses” – the latter got him his first solo number-one single in 2018 – but his romantic streak combined with his sense of playfulness helped him break out of the pack. the late 2010s A few years after his successful performance in 2014 at The Voice, a television vocal competition, he signed to Big Loud Records and began working with Florida Georgia Line producer Joey Moi on his 2018 debut album If I Know Me. By the time he released his second album, Dangerous: The Double Album, in January 2021, he was one of the biggest stars of contemporary country music.
Biography
Wallen was born in Sneedville, Tennessee on May 13, 1993, and raised in the Knoxville area. His father was a preacher who loved pompous hard rock, and his mother was a teacher whose tastes matched modern Christian sounds. Wallen developed a strong interest in music at a very young age; he started singing in church when he was three and started playing the violin when he was five. He later learned to play the piano and guitar, but in high school his passion was baseball and he played for the team at Gibbs High School in Corriton, Tennessee. Wallen was good enough to get offers to play student ball on a scholarship, but at the end of his final year, an elbow injury ended his life as a pitcher and he began to view music as a career.
In February 2014, Wallen entered the popular television vocal competition The Voice, passing a blind audition for Howie Day’s song “Collide”. Asher liked Wallen’s performance and Morgan joined his team. After the second round of the battle, Wallen was stolen by Adam Levine’s team, but Morgan was eliminated in the playoffs. The Voice made Wallen famous, but also helped him find an employee; Sergio Sanchez of Atom Smash was the vocal coach for the show, and together they began writing songs that matched Wallen’s country voice and rock and roll vibe. He moved to Nashville, where he formed the short-lived group Morgan Wallen & Them Shadows with Sanchez.
After settling in Music City, Wallen was promoted to manager and agent positions and signed a publishing deal with Big Loud Shirt Music, which featured his songs among many up-and-coming artists. Big Loud’s recording studio, Big Loud Music, allowed Wallen to record as a solo artist, and he embarked on a tour of the radio stations to get back in shape for performance. In 2016, he impressed the radio with his tune “The Way I Talk”, which was soon followed by a five-song EP. In 2017, he collaborated with Florida Georgia Line on the single “Up Down”, which entered the top 10 country singles charts and earned a gold record. The song became the title song on Wallen’s first full-length album If I Know Me, released in April 2018.
He returned in 2019 with the single This Bar, and in early 2020 with the album More Than My Hometown, the latter of which topped the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Wallen’s second album, Dangerous: The Double Album, was a mixture of romantic ballads and neo-country tracks based on R&B and pop styles. The record debuted at the top of the Billboard album charts and has amassed the most streams in the first week of a country album to date. About a month after its release, Wallen was dropped from his record company, his songs were removed from country radio, and the Academy of Country Music declared his album ineligible for their awards due to a video in which the singer used race-insensitive language.
