Summer Thing in the Words of a Friend

UPDATE: Troy’s EP is now available on iTunes (it’s featured on the Country Music page).
Working in the creative arts as I do I tend to have a lot of friends that are doing some really cool stuff.  Yes, I get jealous and poke pins in little dolls holding book deals and movie rights, but for the most part I’m really happy for them.  There are few things more frightening than putting yourself out there to be judged, loved and splattered with tomatoes — it can hurt like hell or it can feel like sex wrapped in sunshine and bacon.  These are called the ups and downs and they are what make or break artists.  The fact that I’m lucky enough to know people with such passion and talent is amazing, humbling and downright inspiring.

Which leads me to my friend Troy Olsen.  Long story short, Troy is the guy that introduced me to my wife.  That’s a great story in its own right, but this post isn’t about that.  This post is about the fact that 12 years of talent and hard work have turned Troy into an overnight success.  He has penned songs for Tim McGraw and Blake Shelton, which is pretty damn cool, but he now has his own album coming out after signing with Capitol Records, and just last week his first single debuted at number 57 on the country charts.  The record doesn’t come out until later in the year and at that time I’ll run a giveaway for an autographed copy or something sweet like that, but in the meantime you should check Troy out and remember that you heard him here first, strumming out a Summer Thing and looking surprisingly pin-free.