DAN HUTSON

Dan Hutson was born on July 17, 1972, in Bowie, Texas.  Dan fell in love with music at an early age listening to his parent's record collection.  He grew up listening to the music of Hank Williams, Elvis, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Ray Price, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and many more on those old scratchy records.  Then as he got older and the ’80s rolled around, he would go buy his own cassette tapes of artists like George Strait, Kenny Rogers, Keith Whitley, Alabama, Randy Travis, Restless Heart, Dwight Yoakam, and the list goes on.  Then came the final year of the decade when Dan and the rest of the world were introduced to the famous “Class of ‘89”. Alan Jackson, Clint Black, Mark Chesnutt, Travis Tritt, and the legendary Garth Brooks.

Country music was never the same. That was the real turning point when Dan fell in love with country music.  He bought the cassette of every one of those soon-to-be superstars and studied the liner notes and saw all the songwriters and musicians on all those great songs and started thinking that maybe he would want to be a country singer.

The next year in 1990, Dan graduated high school and followed in his father's footsteps, and joined the U. S. Navy where he wrote his first songs.  Tragically, Dan’s father passed away only six months after he joined the Navy. The decade of the ’90s, which is arguably the best era of country music, saw more great country artists whose songs would influence Dan’s style of writing.  Tracy Byrd, Clay Walker, Brooks & Dunn, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Joe Diffie, Tracy Lawrence, Rick Trevino, and on and on and on.  Upon being discharged from the Navy in 1994, he moved back to Texas where he began singing at karaoke bars, winning several contests.

Dan started thinking hard about moving to Nashville and in 1998 took a trip to Music City and fell in love with it.  Something about it just felt right, but unfortunately, he didn’t make the move. In 2000, Dan’s mother, who had previously moved to Oklahoma from Texas,  became ill so he moved up there to be closer to her. In 2003, she sadly passed away and joined Dan’s father in heaven.  Over the next couple of years, he got to thinking about Nashville again and in 2005 he finally made the big move.  But instead of pursuing his original dream of being a country music artist, he focused on songwriting. He found many great co-writers and has honed his songwriting craft.

Having several cuts with independent artists such as Brent Michael Wood, Zach Neil, Grayson Michael, and in July 2020 he got his first international release with a song called “Favorite Scar” on Canadian artist Brittany Brodie.  In addition to being a part of the songwriting staff at Porchlight Music, he also books writers for the Porchlight Pickers songwriter showcase held every Tuesday and Thursday night at The Local in Nashville.