Singer finally moves past ‘The Voice’ with debut album
The second time Sundance Head competed in a nationally televised singing show, he did better than the first, but the aftermath quickly started to feel like a rerun.
The native Texan found his groove on “The Voice” three years ago, singing music that drew equally from soul and country. He walked away a winner on “The Voice” a decade after a short run on “American Idol.”
And then silence fell once again. A contractual record-label deal yielded nothing, and Head — a singer with immense talents struggling to get his music in front of people — again started anew..
“I was pretty depressed with what went down after ‘Idol,’ ” he says. “And I was going to give up. But music never gave up on me. I’m probably the only artist who has been signed to five (expletive) major labels and never had an album come out.”
Head laughs, as he’s quick to do, an almost machine-gunlike “hehehehehe” that lays some sort of cover for selfdoubt.
“But I’m doing better now. I’m not going to change what I do. Whether I’m playing stadiums or bars, I don’t give a (expletive),” he says. “I know who I am, and I just want to sing.”
Soul-country breakout
Earlier this year, Head released “Stained Glass and Neon,” a debut album that — depending on your perspective — was three years in the making, a decade in the making or nearly 40 years in the making. He was a kid who started singing on stage at age 3 with his father, soul and country singer Roy Head.
When Head made his first appearance on “The Voice,” judge/captain Adam Levine asked, “What the hell are you?” He’d just heard Head offer a spirited take
on Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
Head’s voice is a devastating instrument that can be applied effectively to soul, blues, country, pop and heavy metal. Levine also remarked that Redding “is about the furthest thing from country music that I’ve ever heard.”
Unlike Ray Charles, Redding never got to make a countrymusic album, but his wild gospel sound shares Southern soil with country music. And that’s the ground from which Head springs. He’s strongest at the aching songs, both because of the agility of his voice and the lingering ache from a car accident that claimed his older brother 30 years ago.
He transforms hurt no matter the song’s style. In the years after his post-“Idol” lull, a creative identity emerged.
“‘Idol,’ I had no plan at all,” he says. “With ‘The Voice,’ I decided to pick a sound and stick to that. What do we call it? I’m not traditional country, and I’m not Red Dirt. I thought, let’s call it ‘soul country.’ I looked online, nobody was using that. Ray Charles, he did country soul. So that became my thing.”
Head’s father endured similar struggles with music formats. Roy Head had a monster blueeyed-soul hit in 1965 with “Treat Her Right.” He scratched the bottom of the Top 40 twice more that year but spent the rest of his career as a dynamic performer and singer who didn’t conform to radio constructs — a bit of soul, a bit of country.
But the record industry has transformed mightily since Roy Head’s heyday, and the younger Head may have a greater opportunity to devise his own musical hybrid. “Whether I’m singing my own song or a cover, it always sounds like me,” he says.
After ‘The Voice’
Head hadn’t given up on music when he auditioned for “The Voice.” But he had taken an oil-field job and was doing only weekend gigs. He and his wife and their two kids were living with his parents. His wife, Misty, handled management and booking. The operation was completely homegrown. When Head’s work hours were cut back, the family decided he’d give music one more try, something along the lines of a five-year plan. He wasn’t keen to try the reality-show approach again. But he also wasn’t getting the Texas bookings he wanted. Head thought “The Voice” might be a jump-start. He devoured the show, singing songs associated with Etta James and Miley Cyrus in a style he’d made his own.
Even then, he had a hard time drumming up interest. Head’s soul country avoided snap tracks like contemporary pop country. He had a lane of his own, it’s just not one that mainstream Nashville found viable.
Head finally found a collaborator who believed in him. He made “Stained Glass and Neon” with Dean Dillon, a Tennessean and superlative Nashville songwriter who penned dozens of songs for George Strait.
Dillon raised money from some oil-and-gas investors for his own WildCatter Records and helped Head make a proper debut recording. Unlike the post-“Idol” process, which ambled over years, Head was freed from his “The Voice” contract after seven months.
But there was still a lag that caused Head to worry. “It was the same damned thing,” he says. “I win ‘The Voice,’ and there’s no record, no single, nothing. It took Dean to help me figure my (expletive) out. He told me, ‘Dance, there are a million singers in Nashville, but just one Sundance. You have an amazing gift.’ So I treated this like the last record I’d ever make. I put everything I could into it.”
Work has been better since. Head’s shows have been bringing in much more money than his weekend-warrior days, to the point where he and the family moved out of his parents’ house and into a house on 12 acres in New Caney, north of Houston.
“If (expletive) doesn’t work out, we’ll sell it and buy a few acres and a double-wide in East
Texas,” he says. “But I’m proud to say I didn’t copy anybody on the country charts making this record.”
‘Neon’ lights
The album’s title is a strong grab by Head for the sort of thematic material that used to be more prevalent in country music before the genre settled permanently in Friday-night revelry. “Stained Glass and Neon” refers to those aching during last call some nights and those seeking some comfort Sunday mornings.
“People are at the bar for the same reasons people go to church,” he says. “It’s to get healing. What made me fall in love with country music was that it told a story and took you somewhere. Today it’s all about hooks. There’s no journey, no story. But Dean’s a writer, so we found songs that took you somewhere. No songs about trucks, none about Friday night or any of that (expletive).”
So at 40, Head is both a newcomer and a guy with miles and miles behind him.
“Being received at this age by Nashville, you couldn’t write that, you couldn’t foresee that,” he says. “But I’m trying to look at the good things happening for me right now and not the path to get here.”
He remembers discussions more than 10 years ago with an Austin-based management company.
“First thing they told me 20 years ago — ‘You’re too fat,’ ” he says. “Well, 20 pounds isn’t going to help me sell music based on my image. It helps some people, but it’s not who I am. I’m a big guy, and I’m short. So I have to write good songs and sing songs good. That’s my opportunity, and better to figure that out late than never.”