Biography
Wyatt Easterling, who grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, launched his career as a producer, record executive, songwriter, singer, and session musician with the 1981 release of Both Sides of the Shore on Moonlight Records, a Warner Bros. imprint. Although the album failed to achieve commercial traction, Easterling relocated to Nashville and pursued every available avenue in country music. While pursuing another recording contract, he took positions with song publishers, eventually rising in 1990 to head of A&R for Atlantic Records’ Nashville division. That same year he performed on Neal McCoy’s At This Moment and supplied the track “This Time I’m Takin’ My Time,” which he wrote with Bob Moulds. Like most Nashville songwriters, Easterling routinely collaborated, working with Charlie Allen, Liz Barnez, Liz Byler, Jessi Colter Jennings, Rebecca Folsom, Don Goodman, Mike Graham, Porter Howell, Paul Jefferson, Deanna Jordan, Celeste Krenz, Nelson Larkin, Sonny LeMaire, John Marlin, John Scott Sherrill, Johnny Slate, Sharon Vaughn, Jeff Vice, Pam Wolfe, Drew Womack, and his wife, Stacey Slate-Easterling.
In 1991 Billy Joe Royal took Easterling’s “If the Jukebox Took Teardrops” into the country Top 40. Easterling then produced John Michael Montgomery’s Life’s a Dance, playing acoustic guitar on the 1992 album that climbed to the country Top Five and earned triple-platinum certification. Two Easterling compositions, “Wrap Me in Your Love” and “All Because of a Baby Boy,” appeared on Joe Diffie’s Mr. Christmas, which reached the country Top 40 in 1995; months later he also contributed the title song to Diffie’s gold-certified, Top 40 album Life’s So Funny.
Easterling’s roles at Bugle Publishing Group and Firstars Management dominated his activities through the late 1990s and early 2000s. He eventually resumed songwriting, placing four tracks on Hilljack’s 2004 album Stand-Up, which he also produced, and additional songs on Pastor Ronald Williams’ Natural Thing, Drew Womack’s Drew Womack, and Brittany Wells’ Loving Every Minute of It that same year. In 2005 his material surfaced on Derryl Perry’s All Just to Get to You and Clear Blue 22’s Right Now, yet his most prominent achievement was the title track for Dierks Bentley’s chart-topping, million-selling Modern Day Drifter. The song joined “Life’s So Funny” and several new originals on Easterling’s second solo album, Where This River Goes, issued by High Horse Records on May 4, 2009.
In 1991 Billy Joe Royal took Easterling’s “If the Jukebox Took Teardrops” into the country Top 40. Easterling then produced John Michael Montgomery’s Life’s a Dance, playing acoustic guitar on the 1992 album that climbed to the country Top Five and earned triple-platinum certification. Two Easterling compositions, “Wrap Me in Your Love” and “All Because of a Baby Boy,” appeared on Joe Diffie’s Mr. Christmas, which reached the country Top 40 in 1995; months later he also contributed the title song to Diffie’s gold-certified, Top 40 album Life’s So Funny.
Easterling’s roles at Bugle Publishing Group and Firstars Management dominated his activities through the late 1990s and early 2000s. He eventually resumed songwriting, placing four tracks on Hilljack’s 2004 album Stand-Up, which he also produced, and additional songs on Pastor Ronald Williams’ Natural Thing, Drew Womack’s Drew Womack, and Brittany Wells’ Loving Every Minute of It that same year. In 2005 his material surfaced on Derryl Perry’s All Just to Get to You and Clear Blue 22’s Right Now, yet his most prominent achievement was the title track for Dierks Bentley’s chart-topping, million-selling Modern Day Drifter. The song joined “Life’s So Funny” and several new originals on Easterling’s second solo album, Where This River Goes, issued by High Horse Records on May 4, 2009.
Albums
