Dustin Lynch has had a big week. The country singer from Tullahoma, Tennessee, put out his seventh studio album, “Clean Slate,” last Friday, Oct. 30. A few days later he sat down with the radio show “Country Countdown USA” and got a little personal.
He’s 41 and single, and he says he’s enjoying his freedom.
He isn’t in any hurry, either. Dustin believes the right person comes along when the time is right. “Timing is everything,” he said.
If you don’t know him yet, he’s been at this a long time. He was only 16 when he played an open mic night at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe. He went on to earn a biology degree from Lipscomb University, and he now has nine No. 1 songs on country radio.
The new title track is one he didn’t write. It hit him hard anyway. He said the song “punched me in the gut,” and he told the show, “I feel like it was written for me.” His mom was hooked right away too. “My mom loved that song and asked me a bunch of questions about it.”
So here’s the funny thing. A man who’s happily single built his career on a love song.
That song was “Cowboys and Angels,” his very first single, released in January 2012. He wrote it with Tim Nichols and Josh Leo. If you’ve heard it, you probably figured it was about a girlfriend.
It wasn’t. It was about his grandparents.
Dustin told All Access in 2020 that “that song was inspired by my grandparents’ love story.” He still sings it on stage, and he knows what it did for his family. “So I get to share their story on stage each night and then play a song that ended up changing our lives,” he said.
Listen to the 2012 video with that in mind, and the lyrics start to sound like a love letter to two people in his own family.
The music video for “Cowboys and Angels,” the song about his grandparents
Six years later came the biggest night of his career. On Sept. 18, 2018, country star Reba McEntire inducted him into the Grand Ole Opry, the famous Nashville stage show where becoming a member is one of the biggest honors in country music. He brought his niece and nephew on stage that night during “Small Town Boy.” “This is one of those dreams right now,” he told Rolling Stone.
Then he sang “Cowboys and Angels.”
Billboard reported that his grandparents were right there in the crowd, and that Dustin knew exactly where they were sitting. In the magazine’s words, “His grandparents, married for 63 years, were in the seats he had targeted.” Billboard described his voice getting shaky as he pointed to them.
A Nashville TV news crew filmed the night Reba made it official, so you can see the moment the Opry welcomed him for yourself.
Reba McEntire welcoming Dustin Lynch into the Grand Ole Opry
His grandfather has a story of his own, by the way. He’s a pilot too. In a 2023 video, Dustin took him up in a small plane and let him take the controls. Dustin wrote that his grandpa “learned 40 years ago…still has it.”
And the song keeps doing its job at his concerts. Dustin says watching couples “sing and dance to my grandparents’ song is an amazing feeling.”
He may be single right now. But “Clean Slate” is out, and he’s still singing that love story on stage.