From Jesuit High to No. 1 Hits for Jason Aldean, Brantley Gilbert and Gabby Barrett
If you've sung along to a Jason Aldean or Brantley Gilbert hit on the radio, there's a good chance some of those words were written by a kid from New Orleans who once played Tuesday nights at a neighborhood bar for tips. Jim McCormick has built a long career as a Nashville songwriter, but his story, and his sound, started right here in Louisiana.
Growing Up in the Big Easy
McCormick was born and raised in New Orleans and grew up in the Lower Aurora neighborhood of Algiers, on the city's west bank. The Mississippi River levee was practically his backyard, and local radio mixed classic rock with Dr. John and the Neville Brothers. "The music just seeps into you," McCormick said on Louisiana Country Music Live. "It's in the way people talk."
McCormick attended Jesuit High School, where a schoolmate named Harry Connick Jr. was playing brown bag lunch concerts. McCormick formed a rock band of his own that landed a standing Tuesday night gig at Jed's on Oak Street when its members were just 15. The band played there until its members scattered off to college.
A Detour Through Poetry
McCormick's path to Nashville wasn't a straight line. He spent a year at Loyola University New Orleans before transferring to Georgetown University, where a poetry workshop with poet Roland Flint changed everything. He fell hard for the craft of language, switched his major to English, and graduated in 1990.
From there, he came home to New Orleans and earned a Master of Fine Arts in poetry at the University of New Orleans. He did that while fronting The Bingemen, a touring roots rock band made up of childhood friends, which shared stages with Better Than Ezra and the subdudes. That poetry training would later meet a new challenge. Writing for other singers meant a listener had to understand the song on the first listen, and McCormick says learning to be "clear and deliberate" was a skill he had to build.
Finding His Footing in Nashville
On the road, The Bingemen opened for Pat McLaughlin, who was also writing songs for other artists in Nashville. McLaughlin encouraged McCormick to give Music City a try. After the band ended and a 9-to-5 magazine job left him miserable, McCormick took him up on it.
For four years, he split his time between Nashville and New Orleans, sleeping on a friend's couch while he learned the songwriting trade from the ground up. Between trips, he hung sheetrock and painted houses back home.
"I was prepared to sleep on that couch for 10 years," McCormick said. "I really was."
It didn't take 10 years, and when the breakthroughs came, two of them arrived in the same year. In the summer of 2012, McCormick landed his first Billboard Country Airplay number one with Brantley Gilbert's You Don't Know Her Like I Do.
Later that year, Jason Aldean's Take a Little Ride, a song McCormick wrote with Rodney Clawson and Dylan Altman and says started with a guitar riff, became his second.
The Gabby Barrett Hit That Almost Didn't Happen
McCormick's third number one almost didn't happen. One evening as he was leaving the office, his publisher asked whether a young singer could join his writing session the next morning with Zach Kale and Emily Landis. She had finished third on American Idol and didn't have a record deal yet. McCormick was tired and hesitant, and his publisher answered for him: yes.
The singer was Gabby Barrett, then 18. She wanted to write about her boyfriend, now her husband, and Landis had a title for it. When Barrett stepped up to the microphone to sing the demo at the end of the day, McCormick said, "the room vibrated." The Good Ones reached number one on Billboard Country Airplay, earned a CMA nomination for Song of the Year, and won the American Music Award for Favorite Country Song.
Across his career, McCormick's songs have been recorded by artists including Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, Trisha Yearwood, Kelly Clarkson and Randy Travis. They have also been recorded by his fellow Jesuit alum Harry Connick Jr., who cut McCormick's (I Do) Like We Do, the first single from his 2015 album That Would Be Me.
Still Giving Back to Louisiana
McCormick still splits his time between Nashville and New Orleans, and he hasn't forgotten where he came from. He spent about 15 years teaching the craft and business of songwriting at Loyola University New Orleans, passing along what he had learned to the next generation of Louisiana songwriters. In 2020, New Orleans' Cutting Edge Music Business Conference honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. He has also served on the steering committee for New Orleans Music Economy, a GNO, Inc. initiative working alongside artists like PJ Morton to build more of the music business, from publishing to rights management, in New Orleans so the jobs and income stay home.
McCormick also writes often with LCM co-founder CJ Solar, and the two shared the stage with Kensie Coppin for WSRE's Pensacola Beach Songwriters Festival Special, taped at the 2024 festival.
McCormick recently joined LCM co-founder Ronnie Calhoun on Louisiana Country Music Live. From a Tuesday night gig on Oak Street to the top of the country charts, his story is a reminder of how far a Louisiana songwriter can go. You can watch their full conversation below.
Jim McCormick joins host Ronnie Calhoun on Louisiana Country Music Live
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Jim McCormick?
Jim McCormick is a songwriter from New Orleans who splits his time between Nashville and New Orleans. He has co-written three Billboard Country Airplay number ones.
What number one songs has Jim McCormick written?
McCormick co-wrote Brantley Gilbert's You Don't Know Her Like I Do, Jason Aldean's Take a Little Ride and Gabby Barrett's The Good Ones.
Where did Jim McCormick go to school?
McCormick attended Jesuit High School in New Orleans and spent a year at Loyola University New Orleans. He then earned an English degree from Georgetown University and a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of New Orleans.
Who wrote The Good Ones by Gabby Barrett?
Gabby Barrett wrote The Good Ones with Jim McCormick, Zach Kale and Emily Landis.
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