Deric Ruttan is a Grammy-nominated, Nashville-based singer/songwriter and a Canadian country music artist.  The writer of multiple #1 country songs, Deric was raised just outside Bracebridge, Ontario, on land where his great grandfather made moonshine in the 1930’s.  It was the perfect backdrop for the singer/songwriter, who grew up listening to everything from CCR to Gordon Lightfoot to Johnny Cash.  After touring with several country bar bands, Deric moved to Nashville, where his unique outlook and delivery attracted the attention and praise of songwriters Don Schlitz, Steve Earle, and Steve Bogard.  Deric has had over 70 songs recorded by other artists, including cuts by Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Eric Church, Tim McGraw, Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, Justin Moore and David Nail to name a few.  Bentley’s chart-toppers “What Was I Thinkin’”, (Billboard #1), and “Lot Of Leavin’ Left To Do” (Radio & Records #2) are Ruttan co-writes, as are the Eric Church hits,  “Guys Like Me” and “Hell On The Heart” (Mediabase #8).  Since signing with THiS Music/Warner Chappell, Deric’s songwriting star has continued to rise.  In November 2013, he celebrated a multi-week #1 song when “Mine Would Be You”, recorded by country superstar and The Voice judge Blake Shelton, was a three-week number one (Billboard) for the artist.  “Mine Would Be You” was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Song, and an ACM Award for Song Of The Year.  In June 2016 Deric celebrated his second Blake Shelton #1 hit with the introspective “Came Here To Forget”.  In July 2016, MCA Nashville’s David Nail took the Ruttan summer anthem “Night’s On Fire” to #10 on the Mediabase chart, and in April of 2017 Deric celebrated his 4th #1 country single when Jason Aldean took his song “Any Ol’ Barstool” to the top of both the Billboard and Mediabase country charts.  An ASCAP (8x), SOCAN (10x), CCMA (Canadian Country Music Association) (2x), and CMAO (Country Music Association Of Ontario) (5x) award winner, Deric has headlined 4 of his own coast-to-coast tours in Canada, where he has had 11 Top 10 singles as an artist, and 2 #1 videos on CMT.  He is currently in the studio recording music for a new EP, to be released on his own independent label, Black T Records.  He lives just outside Nashville, TN with his wife Margaret.

“This album is titled Rx because these songs are like medicine to me,” Ryan Beaver says of his consistently compelling new release.  “Making this record was so much fun, and so therapeutic.  These songs serve as a prescription for getting excited about music and life.  And if they’re like medicine for me, maybe they will be for the listeners.” Indeed, the 12-song set, the Texas-bred, Nashville-based singer-songwriter’s third longplayer, offers a potent mix of haunting emotional depth and resonant melodic craft.  His insightful, infectious compositions and deeply expressive voice honor the artist’s deep country roots, while transcending the genre’s stylistic boundaries to incorporate a widescreen sense of drama that’s anchored by his lifelong love for raw, gritty rock ‘n’ roll. The resulting album, which the artist co-produced with longtime compadres Jeremy Spillman and Ryan Tyndell, makes it abundantly clear why Ryan Beaver has already been widely acclaimed as an artist to watch.  Rolling Stone recently named him one of “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know,” and he’s received public acclaim from the likes of Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves and Lee Ann Womack, with whom he’s toured as an opening act. The surging, anthem “Dark,” Rx’s opening track and emotional centerpiece, makes it clear why Beaver’s work has generated so much excitement.  A startlingly direct declaration of emotional perseverance, it’s a powerful anthem of hope and survival in the face of loss and disappointment.  A comparable level of emotional gravity powers such memorable tracks as “Rum & Roses,” “Habit,” “When This World Ends” and the stirring album-closer “If I Had A Horse.”  The artist reveals a more humorous attitude on “Fast” and “Vegas,” and pays tribute to one of his creative role models with “Kristofferson,” which he prefaces with a section of Kris Kristofferson’s own “Jesus Was A Capricorn.” “This is my third album, but in a lot of ways it feels like it’s my first,” Ryan states, adding, “I feel like I’ve reached the point where I know what a good song is, and I have a clear vision of what I want to accomplish.” Ryan Beaver’s forthright, personally-charged songwriting reflects the lessons learned over a lifelong creative journey.  Growing up in the small Texas town of Emory, he began writing songs early in life, and began performing his compositions in local venues when he was just 17. “Music opened up another world for me,” Ryan recalls.  “I played in bands, on drums and guitar and piano, but I could never shake the songwriting thing.  I didn’t sing for awhile, because I was kind of shy as a teenager, but I always found comfort in being able to write a song.  Writing songs was my way of getting the world to make sense. “I grew up in this really small town, 70 miles east of Dallas-Fort Worth, 1500 people,” he explains.  “There’s not a lot to do out there, so you had to be creative about how you spent your time.   We had this amazing little scene pop up, where you could actually play your own songs.  I was a trainwreck at first, but I worked at it and I got better.” He moved to Austin and became a part of that city’s fertile music scene, and then relocated to Nashville, where he has immersed himself in Music City’s songwriting community and continued to hone his skills. “I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of shows, primarily in the Southwest, but eventually I realized that I needed to go do this for real and build this thing.  I loved Austin, but I knew that the best singers, players and writers are in Nashville, and that the bar was way higher there.  It was the best thing for me.  I wrote more songs and sang more in a year in Nashville than I would have in five years anywhere else.  And the more you do it, the better you get at it.” Beaver applied that pragmatic attitude to recording Rx, which he recorded on his own dime, without the benefit of record-company financing.  The project was set into motion, he says, when he wrote “Dark” while mourning the deaths of his grandfather and a close friend. “Writing ‘Dark’ really shook me, and really woke me up,” he says.  “I think I needed to hear those words more than anybody, and I realized that if I felt that way, maybe others would.  I got super excited, and I thought, ‘OK, I think I’m onto something here, this is a path that I want to take.’ “I’m a fan of all kinds of music, and I think that’s reflected on the album,” he continues.  “We talked a lot about what we felt was missing from country music now and how we could bring some of that back, and at the same time, how could we push the envelope a little.  That thought was always there: let’s see if we can take this genre to somewhere it hasn’t been before.  But my main goal was to make a record that I would want to hear, with well-crafted songs that said something. “Singing ‘I ain’t afraid of the dark’ is as simple as it gets, and anybody can understand what it means.  That’s me trying to be an adult and trying to figure out how to deal with the real world.  It’s really simple, but getting yourself to the point where you’re able to express things that simply is a challenge, and it something I aspire to.  That’s what Hank Williams did, and it’s what Tom Petty does: express these complicated emotions in everyday language that everyone can understand.  That’s my goal.”

Lee is a 3 time Grammy award nominee and has won other major industry awards including Song of the Year at the Country Music Association awards (in Nashville) and Academy of Country Music awards (in Las Vegas) as well as Music Row Magazine and Nashville Songwriter’s Association International annual awards. He has also won multiple “Songs I Wish I’d Written” awards as voted on and given by the Nashville Songwriter’s Association as well as 11 BMI awards.   Lee has charted 15 years worth of singles with, to date, 7 of them reaching #1. These songs have reached radio plays in excess of 10 million spins. Most recently he co-wrote the Brother’s Osborne single “It Aint My Fault” which reached the top 10 and earned the Brother’s a Grammy for their performance. Lee served as President of the Nashville Songwriter’s Association International (NSAI) for 5 years.  He spent the last 15 years traveling to Washington D.C. representing and lobbying for the rights of the American songwriter. He has testified before both houses of the U.S. congress as well as countless meetings with Congressmen, Senators, White house cabinet members from multiple administrations, Dept of Justice officials, and countless bureaucrats reaching from the U.S. Chamber of Congress to the Register of Copyright. Ultimately this led to the passing of the federal Music Modernization Act in the fall of 2018 of which he was present in the West Wing for the President’s signing.

A brilliant writer, an innovative producer, a dynamic on-stage presence, and a mentor to emerging writers, Gordie’s musical genius and generosity is applauded by audiences and industry players alike.  Raised in the community of Big Pond (pop. 47), near the rugged, edge-of-the-world coastlines of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Sampson’s songwriting has taken him across the globe. But besides the island he hails from, there might be no place in his story more important than Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives now with his family. He moved to Music City in 2005, and in less than a year Carrie Underwood had recorded his own “Jesus, Take The Wheel,” which wound up at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for six weeks in a row and earned Gordie a Grammy for Best Country Song of the Year. Since then, Sampson’s songs have been cut by a long list of established artists that includes Florida Georgia Line, Luke Bryan, Rascal Flatts, Dan + Shay, Hunter Hayes and Caitlyn Smith and by young up-and-comers like Carly Pearce, Caylee Hammack and Tenille Townes.  It was a winding road to get here. He tore up the stage in high school and afterwards with his early bands, did time playing and producing for fiddlin’ phenom Ashley MacIsaac, toured with The Rankin Family, and was part of Canadian folk music icon Rita MacNeil’s group on her weekly CBC show Rita and Friends. Sampson’s straight-to-the-heart tunes benefit from the weight of his expressive voice on his own records, - his 1999 album Stones garnered a Juno Award nomination for Best Roots & Traditional Album and he has won numerous East Coast Music Awards.   Although he doesn’t often take on outside projects, he has appeared as a producer for records by The East Pointers and Port Cities.  Gordie heads back home to Canada every summer to spend time with family and friends in his beloved Cape Breton and to perform in the Maritimes, where enthusiastic audiences welcome him, year after year.  From 2010-2019 he ran The Gordie Sampson Songcamp, a retreat that gives young songwriters the opportunity to develop their skills and build relationships with their peers, and promotes learning in pursuit of artistic excellence. Numerous Songcampers, including Mo Kenney, the members of roots/pop group Port Cities, Dave Sampson and Kyle Mischiek (Sunsetto)  have gone on to build their own successful musical careers.