Billy Lawson
BILLY LAWSON
Photos courtesy of Dick Cooper
Interview with Billy Lawson
Billy Lawson is a singer, songwriter, and producer, and the current owner of Wishbone Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals. Born in Zip City, Alabama, he was playing guitar and singing along with Merle Haggard, Charley Pride and Buck Owens records by the time he started elementary school. When he was nine or ten years old, neighbor and former FAME Studios guitarist Junior Lowe invited Lawson to sit in with his band during gigs on the Alabama-Tennessee state line.
After graduating from high school, Lawson returned to the state-line club circuit with his own band. One night, while performing at a club in Muscle Shoals, he caught the attention of CBS Records executive Larry Hamby and signed an album contract with the CBS-owned Epic label. Industry politics interfered, and his Epic album was never released, but Lawson continued to hone his songwriting craft, and eventually landed a deal as a writer for Sony-Tree Publishing.
By the end of Lawson's first week at Sony-Tree, three major artists had recorded his material, and by the end of his first year, he had two number-one country hits under his belt: "Learning As you Go" by Rick Trevino and "I Left Something Turned On At Home" by Trace Adkins. Other artists who have recorded Lawson's songs include Ronnie Milsap, Tim McGraw, Travis Tritt, George Strait, Sammy Kershaw, Delbert McClinton, the Oak Ridge Boys and Shenandoah.
Sources:
Billy Lawson, interview by Brian Corrigan, August 1, 2018.