One of the longest-running themes in country music features a guy who’s left behind as his girlfriend heads off for the big city in search of a star-quality life.
That separation story played out in George Jones & Tammy Wynette’s “Southern California,” David Frizzell & Shelly West’s “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma,” Dan Seals’ “Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)” and Randy Travis’ remake of “It’s Just a Matter of Time.” More recently, Morgan Wallen threaded a version of that tale into “More Than My Hometown.”
Newcomer Kevin Powers’ fresh take on the idea – “Move On,” featuring Shaboozey – casts it in a modern, folk-country package: brisk, catchy, mostly acoustic. But it still connects to country’s past as the woman in the text glitzes up her life by renting a high-rise in some unspecified West Coast town.
“I don’t think I necessarily had a specific [city] in my mind,” Powers says, “but I did want to kind of put my twist on that classic story of, you know, guy’s-back-home-and-girl-chases-the-big-dreams-in-the-city kind of thing.”
Most moves involve some level of long-term planning, and “Move On” appropriately required several setup periods.
The first came in June 2025 as Powers, Alex Cabrera and David Ray (“Son of a Sinner,” “Save Me”) met up at the Nashville home of Serg Sanchez for a co-writing session. They searched for an idea for quite a while – “probably three hours,” Powers says – before he landed on “Who taught you how to move on,” a phrase loaded with heartbreak and rejection.
“The title really hit me,” Ray recalls. “I thought it was just such a cool, relatable concept for a song. It super-inspired me from the jump.”
Sanchez and Cabrera established a repeating four-chord pattern, and Powers matched the hook to a descending melody that bookended the chorus. Half-way through that stanza, they tossed in a winding top line with different phrasing that changed things up.
“We just wanted a cool B-section for that hook to make it feel fresh and new,” Powers says.
“Anything,” Ray adds, “to keep the listener listening.”
As much time as they’d needed to find inspiration, the chorus came quickly, and the opening verse – which they wrote next – came together “in eight minutes, maybe,” Powers says.
The song’s protagonist acknowledges the woman’s “West Coast move,” her new style and his own depression.
They’d chewed up plenty of time getting started, so once they’d connected the initial verse and chorus, they decided to break and let it marinate for a bit.
“You don’t just throw anything in the background of a Mona Lisa,” Ray suggests. “If you feel like you’ve got something good, you know, it’s like, ‘Hey, let’s really dig into this thing and settle out the way it needs to be. Let’s not rush through this thing and feel like we left with something mediocre.’”
That led to several weeks of contemplation before “Move On” got finished, though Powers was the only member of the original team who was in the room when it got completed. Like the woman in the opening verse, he made a “West Coast move” and brought it up the next month at the California studio of writer-producer Sean Cook (“A Bar Song (Tipsy),” “Good News”), where he was set to write with longtime friend and fellow North Carolinian Whit Kane.
Cook liked the hook, though something about it wasn’t fully working. They ultimately decided it needed a new set of underlying chords.
“It was very, very weird, almost a jazzy kind of guitar thing that was on it before,” Powers recalls.
Cook had wrapped an earlier co-write, and one of his collaborators from that session, Jake Torrey, had an idea. He played a simpler four-chord passage that felt more California country-rock than jazzy, then left for his next appointment. Cook had invited Shaboozey, who was organizing his American Dogwood label, to come by the studio, and they pulled together a quick demo of the verse and chorus with the new undercarriage so they could show him their work. Powers wondered aloud what the odds were that Shaboozey might want to participate. And then he arrived.
“I walked in, heard what they had goin’ on, and it stuck with me right away,” Shaboozey shares. “The more it came together, I just looked at ’em like, ‘Y’all mind if I step in on this one?’ They were all for it.”
He got on a microphone and worked through a second verse that, after the opening stanza’s description of the woman in a high-rise, captured the guy’s emotional struggle back home, where he’s “sleeping on a mattress as cold as you.”
“I freestyled that verse,” Shaboozey says. “I had Sean just loop the production and I went line by line ‘til the right words showed up. Honestly, it all came together real naturally and that’s usually how the best records get made.”
“That second verse was probably written in the span of, I’d say, 30 minutes,” Kane notes. “Maybe an hour, if you counted us going outside and getting some sun.”
After a little more discussion, they decided a bridge was in order, and Powers developed an unusual melody for it. Instead of taking a soaring approach, the melody dips lower than the rest of the tune, then rises as if it’s peaking over the edge of the horizon. “Who do you see when you close your eyes?” the singer asks, hoping that an answer will provide him some closure. It’s become Powers’ favorite part.
“Wasn’t too much second guessing on that song, until that bridge,” he says. “I was like, ‘Is this too simple and plain?’ But they’re like, ‘No, it works.’”
The four of them pulled together some gang vocals that elevated the good-time sonic vibe, working inversely against the guy’s loneliness and resentment.
“The contrast of a timeless song is either you got a really sad track and somebody saying something really happy, or you got a really happy track and somebody saying something pretty depressing,” Kane suggests. “Even though what we’re saying is extremely sad and we’re kind of lost, we’re making really fun music about it, which can be a light for someone that’s going through that same thing.”
Cook played bass and several stringed instruments, hired steel guitarist Smith Curry and fiddler Clayton Penrose-Whitmore for country flavor, and employed brother Ryan Cook for the drum part, which – thanks to just a couple of fills – has a slight Mick Fleetwood vibe. “I remember being like, ‘That sounds like “Dreams,” by Fleetwood Mac,’” Powers says. “Sean’s like, ‘Yeah, I think that’s the point.’”
Shaboozey subsequently signed Powers to his label, which released “Move On” in tandem with Empire in September. Six months later, on March 31, American Dogwood officially released it to country radio via PlayMPE. It’s bulleted at No. 49 on Billboard’s Country Airplay dated May 9 in its third week on the list.
Powers, says Shaboozey, has “an undeniable tone to him – real edge in the way he comes across sonically, something you don’t hear every day. He’s one of the most talented writers I’ve been around, no question. So when it came time to build this thing out, there wasn’t a better first artist to bring into the fold.”
Hence then, the article about new artist kevin powers makes his first move with a shaboozey assist it stuck with me right away was published today ( ) and is available on billboard ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( New Artist Kevin Powers Makes His First ‘Move’ With a Shaboozey Assist: ‘It Stuck With Me Right Away’ )
Also on site :
- No Doubt Transport Las Vegas Sphere to Orange County for New Residency: See Their Full Night 1 Setlist
- Quote of the Day: Trisha Yearwood Shares Her Secret to Self-Love
- German ban on Soviet WWII symbols is ‘discrimination’ – former MEP (VIDEO)