By Holly Gleason
Columbia Nashville's Tyler Farr ain’t your basic bro-country—more your redneck yearning to be real. With George Jones’ guitar player as a former stepfather and raised by his Missouri farmer father, he knows the difference between Chippendale country and the genuine article. His #1s “A Guy Walks Into a Bar,” “Redneck Crazy” and “Water in My Whiskey” harken back to Merle Haggard, John Anderson, Hank Williams, Jr. and Johnny Paycheck: hard-working men who like to drink at the end of a long week, fully knowing the chaos it creates. Coming up in the clubs of Florida, Georgia and Alabama, he’s lived these songs, giving Suffer in Peace deeper impact. A Skynyrd fan, he brings the torque modern country fans like, but the operatically trained Farr keeps drilling. Good prep for his verbal root canal from HITS’ always-hammering Holly Gleason.