Country singer Billy Currington released a 2015 record called “Summer Forever,” and that title encapsulates the ideal conveyed by Currington’s good-time baritone in songs like “Don’t It,” on which the singer presents himself as an agreeable, easy-to-get-along-with kind of guy. He tells his romantic interest to “take a shot or you can sip on it.” He’s flexible.
Currington has songs about red-state towns that like to drink beer and watch football. But he’s not 100 percent by the book with his country cliches: on “Hallelujah” (not the Leonard Cohen song), he sings “God is great, man is not. Man made whiskey, God made pot.” Elsewhere he sings about the seemingly vanished thrills of hitchhiking and getting baked (with Willie Nelson, of course) on “Hard To Be A Hippie.” In general, Currington will take the pleasures of the country over the lights of the big city. “I wanna be a hillbilly, praying for the rain, drink corn whiskey and raise a little cane,” he sings on another song.
Just so you know he’s not a walking booze advocate, Currington also has an older, slightly sappy-sad song about having a father who drinks too much (he still loves him!) called “Walk A Little Straighter.” As much as the Georgia-born Currington might sing about the joys and sorrows of alcohol, the liquid that could be said to define his songs is water, with a thread of lakes, fishing, swimming, and hanging by the ocean running through his songs. (Currington routinely heads to Hawaii when he’s not touring or living the Nashville life.) Currington starts his 16-date tour in Connecticut.
Billy Currington performs at Toyota Presents Oakdale Theater, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford, on Friday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $39. 203-265-1501, livenation.com.
