This country singer filmed his music video in Tucson

Here’s the thing: Before that trip, the Nashville country singer who broke out big with his song of the year “Buy Dirt” two years ago had never been to Tucson.

He probably couldn’t even spell it if put on the spot.

But the word “Tucson” flowed a lot better than any other T-town he and his brother thought of when they wrote the song.

“We had kinda had the idea for the song before we actually had the place picked out,” he explained during a phone call from a Michigan concert stop in early April. “So luckily Tucson is an awesome sounding city and that’s the one we landed on.”

“Tucson Too Late” will definitely be on his setlist when Davis makes his Tucson debut at the Pima County Fair on Saturday, April 29.

The 35-year-old Louisiana native included several Tucson landmarks in the video, which doesn’t have a release date yet. With the help of Tucson film scout Jim Gross and Film Tucson, Davis included several iconic Tucson backdrops in the video, including Triple T Truck Stop and a stretch of saguaro-dotted desert on the west end of West 36th Street that leads into Tucson Mountain Park, Gross said.

Ask Davis about the landmarks, and he’s at a loss, but he did remember a “really cool studio” where Linda Ronstadt and Kenny Rogers had recorded. Gross said Jim Brady Recording Studios also had some equipment dating back to the 1970s and ’80s that made for a cool backdrop.

“Tucson Too Late” is the latest single from Davis, who launched his career as a songwriter in Nashville in 2012, not long after earning an environmental degree from Louisiana State University. Four years later, he signed a record deal and the following year, released his debut single, the up-tempo “If He Singles You Up.” The song topped the country charts, and “it’s been kind of off to the races ever since.” 

“If He Singles You Up” was the first of three singles (“Take it From Me,” “Slow Dance in A Parking Lot”) off Davis’s 2018 debut studio album “Home State.” 

In 2020 and 2021, he released EPs that kept him on country radio, including the singles “Almost Maybes” and “Buy Dirt,” which he co-wrote with his brother Jacob and the songwriting brothers Josh and Matt Jenkins. 

“Buy Dirt” was the career changer. Released in July 2021, by year’s end, it had topped the charts, landed at No. 22 on Billboard’s Hot 100 that charts mostly pop and rock songs and earned the designation Song of the Year in November 2022 by the Country Music Association. 

“I knew it was a special song, and it meant a lot to have Luke (Bryan) on it, but I’ve never been really good at picking songs that do well,” Davis said when asked if he ever imagined “Buy Dirt” would impact his career trajectory in the way that it did. “I think the day we wrote it we knew we wrote something special, but we just thought it was special because it was really honest and meant a lot to us personally. We didn’t expect it to go on and do what it’s done.

“For me that’s a healthy way of approaching songwriting,” he added. “You write a song and you can love it, but at the end of the day that’s one song and you gotta get up the next day and write another one. But don’t get me wrong: That song definitely means more to me.”

Which brings him to “Tucson Too Late.” He had considered “Tulane Too Late,” but “Tulane” doesn’t exactly roll smoothly off the tongue. 

“That’s truly kind of how we landed on that title,” said the father of two, who is expecting No. 3 with wife Kristen in June. “And to be honest with you now, the music fits it. I feel like as weird as that sounds, now that I listen to that song, even the production to me feels like Tucson. I’m really glad that we landed on that T-town.”