Russell Dickerson’s Wisconsin wife behind his success
Kailey Dickerson creative force behind singer
Five or six years ago, Russell Dickerson performed an afternoon set on Summerfest’s Harley-Davidson Roadhouse stage.
Only about 20 people showed up — about 18 of them related to his wife, Cedarburg native Kailey Dickerson.
The crowds are definitely bigger these days — that’s what a No. 1 song on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart will do. But Kailey’s still bringing people to the shows — even if those fans of her husband don’t know it.
Kailey, 29, is Russell’s creative director. She’s taken all the photos for his album covers and directed the no-budget “Yours” music video that took off in 2015.
She inspired all of the love songs on Russell’s breakthrough “Yours” album. Until recently, she also drove the band’s van, sold the merchandise, took concert photos and meet-and-greet pics, shot and edited touring videos, and more. She’s still touring with Russell full time — making the bus “homey,” she said, picking the wine and “lighting candles so it doesn’t smell like smelly boys.”
“From the beginning she has been the most vital part of my career,” Russell told the Journal Sentinel ahead of a Saturday show opening for Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker in Milwaukee
during Harley-Davidson’s 115th Anniversary celebration.
“Without her and without her skill set, we wouldn’t have had the music video, and Sirius XM wouldn’t have picked up ‘Yours’ and it wouldn’t have ended up on Spotify playlists and we wouldn’t have gotten all this attention from the industry and record deal offers.”
Born in Milwaukee, Kailey lived in the same Cedarburg house until college, with her parents and five older brothers. She performed in “all the musicals” at Cedarburg High School and sang in the choir, and after graduating in 2007, went to Belmont University in Nashville to study music. Her future husband was one of her classmates.
“I don’t remember meeting him, but I remember the first time I heard him sing in a classical music class. I was, like, ‘Dang, this guy can sing,’ “Kailey said. “We were strictly friends, but we started hanging out a lot, and I started asking myself, ‘Why do I want to be around Russell all the time?’ Our junior year, we were at this party, at the side of this house, and there was this ‘Are you gonna kiss me or not’ moment, and he did. I was like, ‘Wow, all right, we’re doing this.’”
That was in 2010. On Super Bowl Sunday 2013, when Kailey’s parents were visiting in Nashville, Russell proposed. Three months later, they were married.
By then, Kailey shifted her professional focus, working as a photographer and videographer, while Russell tried making it as a country singer, to no avail.
“When every label said no to him, I was like, ‘What in the world? This makes no sense at all,’” Kailey said. “No one was going to give it to us, so we had to go out there and get it.”
The year after Russell and Kailey married, he co-wrote “Yours,” inspired by his wife, with mutual friends from Belmont, Casey Brown and Parker Welling.
“The best me has his arms around you,” Russell sings. “The worst me is just a long-gone memory.”
In 2015, Kailey decided to make a music video for her husband, picking up a couple lessons from her filmmaking brother Toben Seymour, when she helped him on the set of a Norah Jones music video shoot.
But this was truly a DIY effort: no location scouting, no lighting, no real plan.
“It was Kailey filming in the back of an SUV through the hatch, with my buddy driving, and me walking on a desolate road,” Russell said. “That was it, and God took over and brought the lightning and the rain. That was kind of the start of it all really, that video and the magic that was captured.”
The following year, Russell signed a deal with Thirty Tiger Records, which released his “Yours” album last fall.
In January, the “Yours” title track ascended to the top spot on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. The video’s been viewed more than 30 million times on YouTube, the song’s been streamed 117 million times on Spotify, and in May, Kailey’s treatment was nominated for Breakthrough Video of the Year at the CMT Awards. And after his second consecutive year as an opener for Thomas Rhett’s tour, he started touring with Lady Antebellum and Rucker on the “Summer Plays On Tour.”
That tour hits Milwaukee Saturday, by now a second hometown for Russell, who frequented Cedarburg for past Fourth of July and Christmas holidays.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a while,” Kailey said. “I get to see my nieces and nephews. I have it all planned out; we’re getting Tomaso’s Pizza and I want a caramel apple from Amy’s. I need my fix.”
And when Russell performs in Milwaukee Saturday, he’ll be back on the Summerfest grounds — except this time, he’ll be playing on the biggest stage, the American Family Insurance Amphitheater, for thousands of people.
“My first concert was seeing James Taylor there at Summerfest, so for (Russell) to come back and play where I saw my first concert is pretty surreal,” Kailey said. “I’m just thankful, after all the hard work we put in, to share this with family and friends.”