Country fests narrow the gap between headliner and opening act

There’s the obvious distance between Coyote Countryfest’s headliner and its first opening act.

Maybe three hours, the literal-minded would say.

Five consecutive No. 1 hits, a more metaphoric answer would be.

But the speed of country radio, and festivals gathered in its name, also narrows the gap.

Who sang with Keith Urban in front of 25,000 people at the Route 91 Harvest festival last fall?

It was Sierra Black, the Las Vegas native who goes on at 6:30 p.m., 30 minutes after the doors open for Saturday’s Orleans Arena gathering under the banner of KCYE-FM, 102.7, “The Coyote.”

And who made his first trip to Las Vegas just a few years ago, selling T-shirts for Luke Bryan?

That would be Cole Swindell, who headlines the bill that includes Jon Pardi, Love and Theft and Brett Young.

Swindell, 33, admits his success as a recording artist outpaced his track record as a live performer. “Just because you get a single, just because you put a song out to radio, doesn’t mean you’re about to have five consecutive No. 1 hits. That’s not normal and I know that,” he said by phone last week.

So festivals like this one, or opening arena shows for Jason Aldean or Florida Georgia Line, are less of a commitment for audiences than buying a ticket to see him on his own. “I’m in front of huge crowds, which is so amazing for a newer artist like me. And then I get to go back and play the clubs, which is kind of where I feel I should be anyway, because it happened so fast.”

Black got a brief view from the festival stage when she won a “Sing With Keith Urban” contest and joined him for a duet of “We Were Us” at the Route 91 fest.

“I still pinch myself thinking about it,” the 23-year-old says. “Sometimes I watch the video back, I feel like it’s not real. Photoshopped or something.”

The most predictable common ground for both singers is Nashville, where Black has recently spent time working on an EP, and where Swindell got his start as a songwriter.

The Georgia native had played cover tunes in bars, and already learned “it was just a cool feeling to watch people have fun and know I was kind of responsible,” before he met Bryan through a Georgia Southern University fraternity connection.

Seeing the rising star perform one of his compositions “blew my mind that the guy I was sitting there with, he wrote that and it made me feel the way it did,” Swindell says.

He redirected his focus and ended up writing hits for Bryan, Thomas Rhett and Scotty McCreery. He even had a co-writing credit on Florida Georgia Line’s signature hit “This Is How We Roll.”

His writing credits almost too easily explain how Swindell made the jump to his own hits, from “Chillin’ It” to the recent “You Should Be Here.”

A songwriter does think about, he says, “What’s gonna catch people’s attention? What’s going to make them want to hear more and know more about me?”

And, of course, Swindell wasn’t at the mercy of other writers. “When you get your first chance and you’re a new artist, you’re not going to get all these big-time songwriters sending you songs,” he says. “The fact that I had three years of (my own) songs to pick from was a huge blessing.”

If Las Vegas isn’t known for it’s songwriting circle, it does host big names such as Reba McEntire and Shania Twain, two of Black’s inspirations. “I love her sass,” she says of Twain.

Black didn’t place in Faith Lutheran High School’s talent contest when she was a student. But something about singing Miranda Lambert’s “White Liar” made her decide, “I think this is exactly what I want to do.”

Show business already seemed real to her; her grandmother was Babette DeCastro of the DeCastro Sisters, golden-age Las Vegas headliners. Black sings at places such as the Chrome Showroom at Santa Fe Station and says Las Vegas does have a homegrown country scene: “It’s out there. If you want to look for it, you can find it.”

But now, experienced Nashville writers are helping her define her own sound. “It will sound like me, but I’m kind of figuring out who I am as an artist and what I want to say to everybody. I’m a strong girl and I’ll fight for what I want and I’m never gonna give up,” she says.

Swindell says there is always plenty of help.

“There’s more to country music than the sound of it, I think. We’re all buddies and all pulling for each other,” he says. “That next guy’s out there waiting on his chance.”

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.