“I’ve never taken a break in 12 years.”
Russell Dickerson said that on “Country Countdown USA,” the weekly radio show hosted by Lon Helton, where he sat in as co-host. Taste of Country, Country Now and American Songwriter all reported on the visit on Nov. 9.
Then he told Helton what comes next. “Now, having this baby, we’re going to take some time off, until maybe around May,” he said. “We’re gonna shut it down.”
If the name is only half familiar, Russell is the singer from Union City, Tenn., behind “Yours” and “Blue Tacoma.” His song “Happen to Me” went to No. 1 on country radio in 2025. MusicRow counted it as his sixth chart-topper.
He and his wife, Kailey, have two sons. Remington, called Remy, is 6. Radford, called Rad, is 3. A few days before the radio visit, the couple shared a video of the moment they learned baby No. 3 is a girl. Country Now reports she is due next month.
Russell wants the work finished before she gets here. “I’m gonna have a record done before the end of the year, so we can have family time,” he said.
There is one more thing he would like finished by then, and it has taken a lot longer than an album.
“We’ve been building a house for the last 2-1/2 years,” he said. The family is still not living in it. “Hopefully we’ll get in before this baby gets here.”
So why has one house taken that long? Russell says it was never supposed to be a new house at all. The plan was to fix up an existing place.
“It started as a renovation, and then as we started, our builder recommended we just scrap it,” he said.
They took the advice and started over. “So that’s been a whole new process, and that’s why it’s taken so long,” he said.
While Mom and Dad wait on the house, 3-year-old Rad is waiting on his sister, and he has less patience than they do. “Rad has a doll where he can pretend he’s holding the baby,” Russell said. “But he wonders why we can’t have the baby now.” Country Now and American Songwriter both report that the little boy keeps asking the same question: “Why do we have to wait?”
Russell and Kailey have talked about their boys on camera before. CMT sat the two of them down for a round of questions about family life, and you can see how they play off each other.
Russell and Kailey answer CMT’s questions about family life
Long before the builder had his say, Russell had a hit called “Home Sweet” about a young couple making a home together. Holler reports that its video is built from the Dickersons’ own home movies, starting with the day he proposed in 2013.
Russell and Kailey’s own home movies in his “Home Sweet” video
A third child may not be the last one, either. “Four seems feasible, and if we had a whoopsie daisy five…” he told Helton, and he did not sound worried about it. “I’ve never met anyone who says they wish they had less kids.”
He is not chasing his friend Thomas Rhett, who has five. He is thinking much further ahead than that.
“I see us all gathered around the kitchen table when they have spouses,” he said.
That table needs a kitchen first. If the builder stays on schedule, Russell will have until about May to sit at it.