Stevie Lee Woods is a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee and the star of Nashville Roadhouse Live, a hit TV show and stage production based out of Branson – a town that has its own distinct relationship with American country entertainment. “Welcome to the Southland,” released June 9th, was recorded at Mansion Studios in Branson with a production team that includes Chris Omartian, Chris Armstrong, and Stuart Epps, the latter best known for his work with Elton John. That’s a serious production pedigree for a summertime country rock anthem, and it shows. Woods describes the song as one he loves performing live, citing the energy that builds as audiences start singing along line by line, which is about as clear a measure of a song’s function as you’re going to get.
This song has everything you expect – a great rhythm section, a huge wall of sound like classic feel-good arena rock, with a massive organ supporting the guitar riffs. Big backup vocals create that sense of ecstasy, a full-throated celebration of everything about the American South. It’s the kind of production where every element is doing its job loudly and proudly: the guitars churn, the organ lifts, the vocals stack up into something that feels communal by design. There’s no subtlety being attempted here, and none is needed – this is music built for rooms full of people who already know all the words, or will by the second chorus.
Woods has been doing this long enough to know exactly what a song like this needs, and the band delivers it without second-guessing themselves. “Welcome to the Southland” is unabashedly what it is – a big, warm, patriotic country rock anthem with its arms wide open. In the live setting Woods describes, it probably hits exactly as hard as intended.
