After over two decades of making music, one thing has never changed for Casey Donahew – it has always been and always will be about the song.
The Lone Star native, whose hometown of Fort Worth, TX has designated October 22nd “Casey Donahew Day” and has adopted his song “Stockyards” as the official song, has carved out a sizable niche for himself simply just by doing what he does best and doing it with authenticity. That unwavering trait is what his fans respond to and come back for time and time again. He’s at it again with his latest album, NEVER NOT LOVE YOU, a 17-track project packed chock full of musical tales about cowboys, love, heartbreak, and the eccentricities of life that he fine-tunes into so well and paints oh so vividly in the songs he writes.
For Casey, lyrics have always been king, whether he was singing about colorful, zany characters that might live down the street or come to Thanksgiving dinner each year, or the gut-wrenching devastation of something as serious as addiction. Fans flock to his shows to revel in the zany, wacky tales of pot-selling grannies and shotgun-toting girls whose bras don’t fit, along with the more somber stories of heartbreak, failure and redemption that Donahew weaves so well. Drawing from real life and its roller coaster highs and lows has provided him with plenty of rich material over the last 22 years, and like a rare vintage his craft has only gotten stronger and better with age. He has proven himself a consistent hit maker who has dominated on both the charts and the live music scene as well, with 27 singles that have topped the Texas charts, and clearly has his finger firmly on the pulse of what his fans love. This latest album is no exception.
Donahew penned nearly ¾ of NEVER NOT LOVE YOU solo, which is the way he prefers to write, and finds that his process hasn’t changed much throughout the last 12 records and counting. “I don’t write in themes or think about that when I go to make an album, I just write what I feel, and I do it at my own pace and I don’t like to rush things,” the plainspoken artist explains. “If I write a song and get it to the place where I feel like it’s finished, then I record it. And I still listen to some outside songs but I like to write alone because then no one influences how I say something, or what I’m trying to say in my head. I just try to put out good songs, whether it’s cowboy songs or love songs or heartbreakers or rock songs or sad songs or happy ones…I just try to do good songs.”
With 27 career chart-toppers in his home state, he clearly has a bead on what a good song is in the eyes of his listeners. And for Casey, the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” definitely comes into play. He never strays too far from the songs his legion of fans love, although he did stretch a bit on this album and color outside the lines a little on several of the new tunes. On this latest project he shines on sweetly sentimental love ballads like “Hideaway,” where he races to seek solace in the one he loves away from the madness of the outside world, “When She Kissed Me,” about that breathtaking moment on the highwire of love when you’re just about to let go and fall, and “Whiskey Talking,” the romantic duet with newcomer Kylie Frey, his first bonafide duet.
“I think this is my first real duet,” admits Donahew. “I’ve had girls sing on songs before, but this is the first duet. Kylie has crazy vocals and she can really sing, and she’s been coming to our Boots On The Beach festival for a few years, so we developed a relationship and we reached out and she was on board. I thought it was such a great song and loved the lyrics, and we held it for a couple of years and I think it’s one of those songs on the record that’s pretty special.”
Donahew’s Boots On The Beach event has become a must-attend for fans of real Texas music, and has grown each year since its inception seven years ago. The Cabo San Lucas festival is the brainchild of Donahew and his powerhouse wife Melinda, and has featured top-tier talent from Josh Abbott, Wade Bowen, Randy Rogers, and Pat Green, to Rhett Akins, Chase Rice, Koe Wetzel, Ella Langley, and more. The festival features three separate weeks of non-stop music and fun, and of course is the inspiration for plenty of great songs being written as well, including “Running Out Of Time,” – an apt tune featuring Casey and Texas buddies Wade Bowen, Randy Rogers, and Pat Green about those glory days and the rolling gypsy artist life and the thousands of miles logged across the country playing for crowds that has already topped the Texas chart.
The beachside festival has also inspired plenty of heartbreak tunes as well, which Donahew finds that he really relishes writing and singing, maybe a little too much sometimes. “It seems like my forte would be cowboy songs and also heartbreak and despair songs, which are probably my more popular songs, I probably feel more comfortable writing those…I don’t know why, maybe I’m a tortured soul,” he muses.
That soul is evident on tracks like “Another Beach” with its quiet resolution of goodbye written in the sand as the waves come crashing in and his world comes crashing down, the cleverly written “Other Side Of A Love Song,” and the title track, “Never Not Love You,” with its resignation of devotion until the end and beyond, even if it turns out all wrong. In true Donahew style, he lights it up on barn-burning tracks like the stomper “Chasing A Dream” with its throwback 90s country cowboy vibe, and even wades into some uncharted territory for him on the Nirvana/Pearl Jam vibe of the rocker “Messed Up Alone.”
And it wouldn’t be a Casey Donahew album without some redneck good-time fun in the vein of the fan-favorite “Double Wide Dream” on “Luckiest Guy.” “That’s me all the way,” says Donahew about penning the fun-filled track. “I feel like I have to write one of those songs every so often. I like to write a white trash, redneck anthem…you know my people! Everyone loves those, and I think it’s fun to write these songs and try to be clever and come up with new twists and turns and to just write them better is always my goal when I get in the groove of writing the anthem-type song. There are only so many ways to say these things, so to create a new story, a new idea based in the trailer community is always a challenge,” he adds, laughing.
He also tips his hat to his avid cowboy fanbase on the story song “Tommy Barrett,” which has already struck a chord with his fans and is in the same vein as “Josie Escalido” from his ALL NIGHT PARTY album. The track is evidence of Donahew’s undeniable knack for telling a compelling, three-minute story, and he feels there aren’t enough of them written in today’s cross-genre, pop-country world.
“That song is probably the most asked-about and requested since I put a teaser out about the album,” admits Donahew. “It’s a cowboy story, and I’ve written several, but it’s kind of like a “Red Headed Stranger” type song, and in my mind when I write those songs it kind of plays out like a movie. It’s one of those ones that everyone that hears it, I get requests from cowboys and the cowboy community all the time…people love those songs and miss them, and there aren’t enough cowboys writing those songs. So it’s good to put them out and take people back to the glory days when these songs were the norm. There aren’t as many people living that life now, and there’s no room on the radio for songs like this, and in today’s universe it’s not a radio hit, but if somebody put this out in1975, it’s probably a No.1 and they probably would’ve made the movie.”
The movie and TV industry has actually taken notice of Donahew’s talent plenty of times over the past few years. He’s had several songs in the popular “Yellowstone” TV drama, and one in the Taylor Sheridan drama “Tulsa King” as well, along with a cut in the 2022 B.J. Novak/Ashton Kutcher film “Vengeance.” The projects are just another outlet for the hardworking singer/songwriter, who continues touring around the country to sellout crowds as well. He finds at 20 plus-years in, the things that continue to carry him through and sustain him are the same things that brought him to the dance in the first place – hard work and dedication to his craft.
“I think I’ve evolved a little bit over time with my writing,” he admits. “I put more thought into it, which may be a detriment sometimes…I’ve had discussions with other artists about that. Sometimes I think I’m trying to be too clever, and I have to remind myself it’s OK to be dumb sometimes and put out something fun -- don’t overthink it. There’s some stuff I did on this record that’s a little outside of my normal, and I just wrote a couple of songs that I thought were a different vibe, and maybe that’s just influenced by life or what I’m listening to, but I think you just get better at it. You do anything for 20 years, hopefully you get better at it… you should, or I don’t know what you’re doing with your free time,” says Donahew, laughing.
