Dan Smalley Left Nashville for Shreveport, the City That Once Nearly Took Everything
- Louisiana Country Music
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Dan Smalley has written songs recorded by Ashley McBryde, Trace Adkins, Randall King, Dillon Carmichael, Jerrod Niemann, Joe Nichols, and Makayla Lynn, signed and walked away from major label deals on his own terms, made an independently produced album in two days that went on to earn an international record of the year nomination, and shared stages with Willie Nelson, Tim McGraw, and Carrie Underwood. He built every bit of that from Nashville, then brought it home with him to Shreveport, the city that raised him and once nearly took his life.
Family Comes First
Ask Smalley what matters most to him, and the answer isn't music.
"My wife and kids changed my life," he said. "They're the best part of my life. I love being a dad, and a husband. It's one of the most rewarding parts of life, in my opinion."
He calls his wife, Heather, an all-star. His son's growth as a baseball player played a direct role in the family's decision to leave Nashville, and his daughter, he says, has made A's since she started school and has "the most natural little golf swing you've ever seen."
"They hold me accountable," he said. "They make me want to just be a better dude."
Rooted in Louisiana
Smalley's parents met in a bar in Shreveport, where his father won his mother over singing Elvis Presley at karaoke. They married in 1984, and by the time the Air Force sent his dad to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Dan was born, on November 6, 1985. The family moved through Alabama, Ohio, and Kansas before landing for good in his mother's hometown of Shreveport in 1999. Even during the years spent elsewhere, Louisiana was a constant, summers and holidays spent fishing on Toledo Bend, filling baskets with bream, sunfish, and bass that his grandmother would fry up that evening.
"To me it was paradise," he said. "I feel fortunate to be able to have grown up like that."
Music came early too: saxophone in third grade, football once the family settled in Louisiana, and a broken leg his senior year that finally pushed him toward the guitar sitting around the house.
"I picked up a guitar that was lying there in my house and was like, you know what, plan B, I guess," he said.
His father, also a musician, wasn't so sure country music would come as easily to his son as his own path through military bands had.
"He's like, 'I got lucky, son,'" Smalley remembered. "'What you're going to try to do now, good luck, kid.'"
A Night That Changed Everything
By his 20s, Smalley was playing several nights a week between Shreveport and Arlington, Texas, and the drinking that went with that lifestyle had become a serious problem. He's described multiple stints in rehab and periods of sobriety that didn't hold, along with a birthday night in downtown Shreveport when a group of men beat him up after he wandered, drunk, into a crowd he doesn't remember approaching.
The breaking point came while celebrating his birthday in 2014. Smalley blacked out, was dropped off near home, and tried to force his way into what he thought was his own house. It belonged to a neighbor, who shot him twice with a .40 caliber pistol, hitting his chest and his arm. He's said doctors told him he was pronounced dead at the scene before being revived on the way to the hospital.
"That's Jerry's Ghost, if you listen to the song," Smalley said of the track that later grew out of the experience, officially titled Mr. Jerry's Ghost. "That's verbatim what happened."
He hasn't had a drink since.
"The thought of not being able to raise my children was the first thought, and not being able to be with my wife was the second thought," he said. "That's all it took for me. Never again."
Smalley later turned that stretch of his life, and the years of decisions that led to it, into the song Lucky, with Heather as a throughline throughout, the same steady presence she is in how he talks about staying sober today.
Smalley now tells the whole story from the stage before playing Mr. Jerry's Ghost, a practice he's kept up since being encouraged to do so early in his career.
"It connects, it affects people," he said. "There is light on the other end of that tunnel."
Building a Life in Nashville
Smalley began making regular trips to Nashville years before he moved there, building relationships that included a publishing connection with producer Keith Stegall. He credits the community he found at the Blue Bar, including Terry Joe Box, Ashley McBryde, and a circle of songwriters working out of The Song Factory, with giving him a foothold in the town.
"They kind of took me under their wing," he said. "From that moment on, I felt pretty solid."
The family relocated in 2017, with Heather and their two children, Ella and Dayton, following once Smalley had gotten settled, lawn chairs standing in for furniture at first.
"We lived on lawn chairs for the first few months," he told Country Now shortly after signing with Big Machine. "We sacrificed a lot to get here, and the fact that it's starting to pay off makes us proud."
One of Smalley's best known songs came together not long after, on short notice in that same front yard in Green Hills, before the furniture had even arrived. He'd been sitting on the title and a loose structure for months when songwriters Davis Corley and Mark Addison Chandler joined him to finish it.
"Davis comes back in with the first three lines of the chorus," Smalley recalled. "I was like, 'Did you say between broomstick and a kid?' And he said, 'Yeah, I did.'"
The song, If I'm Being Honest, became the title track of his 2020 debut EP with Big Machine Records, produced by Stegall, alongside Till Country Comes Back, Lucky, and Rich and Famous.
Choosing His Own Record
Smalley eventually pushed back against label direction on his own music, refusing to trim the project down to the most radio friendly tracks.
"It came down to me having to say, 'No, I will not turn this into an EP,'" he said.
The result was The State of Country Music, a 13 song album led by the single Can't Leave Wrong Enough Alone, written with Phillip Lammonds and Skip Black. Smalley recorded the album independently with his band over two days after he and the label parted ways on production, and released it in May 2024 through his own Smallside Records. The album went on to earn a nomination for International Record of the Year at the British Country Music Awards.
"Am I proud of it? Absolutely," he said. "People connect to these songs."
Fame was never really the goal, he's said.
"I'm not in this to be famous," he said. "I'm in this to make music and hopefully create a career that is enough for me to support my family."
The Move Back to Shreveport
Long before the move became official, Smalley was already talking about it. Back in Shreveport for a Christmas show at Louisiana Grandstand in December 2023, he told the Shreveport-Bossier Journal he wanted to help revive a local music scene.
"I felt held back a little bit by Shreveport, because I've always wanted to be a musician, but there's really not that economy there anymore that supports it," he said at the time. "I feel like there's a way maybe to build it back up."
Smalley and his family eventually made the move, driven in large part by his son's baseball future and a desire to be closer to family. In a conversation with Louisiana Country Music, he pointed to a summer of watching Louisiana ball as part of what sealed it.
"It just felt like a more competitive environment, to be completely honest with you," he said of the move, adding that he'd already seen a higher level of play in Louisiana over one summer than his son saw in Nashville's public school system."I can write in FaceTime, I can Zoom," he said. "I'm still very active in music."
Building Something Bigger Than a Catalog
Since the move, Smalley has kept releasing music independently, including the singles Can't Be Fixed, which he recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely on his own, and This Is My Life, a tribute to Kim Larsen produced with his friend, Danish producer Emil. He said a full project is in the works.
He's also talked about wanting Louisiana to build a music economy of its own, pointing to the talent already working in cities like Shreveport as reason enough to try.
"There's no reason we can't create an economy of our own and have our own Louisiana country music industry," he said.
That vision showed up in person this year when Smalley joined Kylie Frey, Alex Smith, and Hadlie Jo for Songs for St. Jude at Somerset House in Alexandria, an event that helped raise more than $30,000 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Why Dan Smalley
Dan Smalley built a career many songwriters spend a lifetime chasing: outside cuts recorded by respected artists, a major label deal, festival stages from Glasgow to Copenhagen, almost all of it built out of Nashville. Instead of chasing more of it, he brought all of it home to Shreveport, closer to the people who matter most to him, and put it to work behind a country music scene of its own.
Every part of his story, the night that nearly killed him, the songs that came out of it, the choice to fight for his own record, feeds into that mission. Shreveport nearly took everything from him once. This time, he came home on his own terms, ready to help build the music scene he's always believed Louisiana could have.
How to Support Dan Smalley
Stream Can't Be Fixed and This Is My Life, and watch for his upcoming project
Revisit If I'm Being Honest and The State of Country Music
Follow Dan on social media for tour dates and new releases: @DanSmalleyMusic
Follow Dan Smalley
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Jul 14, 2026
Frequently Asked Questions About Dan Smalley
Where is Dan Smalley from?
Dan Smalley was born on November 6, 1985, in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved frequently as a child due to his father's Air Force career before the family settled for good in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1999.
What is Dan Smalley's most well known song?
If I'm Being Honest, the title track of his 2020 debut EP with Big Machine Records, remains one of Dan's most recognized songs. He also wrote Mr. Jerry's Ghost and Lucky, both based directly on the night he was shot and the years leading up to it.
Did Dan Smalley sign with a major label?
Yes. Dan signed with Big Machine Records and released his debut EP, If I'm Being Honest, in 2020, produced by Keith Stegall.
What is The State of Country Music?
The State of Country Music is Dan's independently released 13 song album, recorded in two days with his band and led by the single Can't Leave Wrong Enough Alone. It was nominated for International Record of the Year at the British Country Music Awards.
Has Dan Smalley written songs for other artists?
Yes. Dan's co-writes have been recorded by artists including Ashley McBryde, Trace Adkins, Randall King, Dillon Carmichael, Jerrod Niemann, Joe Nichols, and Makayla Lynn.
Does Dan Smalley still live in Louisiana?
Yes. After nearly a decade in Nashville, Dan, his wife Heather, and their two children, Ella and Dayton, moved back to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he continues to write and release music.
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