On Friday, Tim McGraw performed an acoustic rendition of his favorite song, John Schneider‘s “Take the Long Way Home,” which reached the top 10 of Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart on March 13, 1987. The modern country star explained that every artist has a song that didn’t make it to radio (and thus didn’t grow to be as popular as it could have been), but they still love to jam to it.
This led to the latest social-media challenge popping up as our favorite stars are keeping busy at home, just like the rest of us, amid the coronavirus crisis: McGraw introduced the #DeepCutsChallenge.
He passed the baton first to Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney, writing in the caption, “See what ya can reach back and play for us.” Paisley took the challenge and ran with it.
“Okay @thetimmcgraw I’ll see your John Schneider and raise you some @stevewariner,” the 47-year-old artist declared as he shared his cover of Steve Wariner‘s “What I Didn’t Do.” The original singer was a major fan. “@bradpaisley hey pal, SO SO cool! To hear you do my song! Love it! Hope you and your family are well…miss ya buddy,” Wariner commented on the video.
Next, Paisley nominated Darius Rucker under the sole condition he didn’t cover a song by his rock band Hootie & the Blowfish because “that’s cheating.” So Rucker performed a tear-jerking jam, Foster & Lloyd‘s “You Can Come Cryin’ to Me,” before challenging Lady Antebellum‘s Charles Kelley, Luke Bryan and Aldean to carry it on.
Despite claiming to be “a pretty horrible guitar player,” Kelley responded to the call with “Call Me a Dog” by Chris Cornell before hollering at Russell Dickerson, who paid homage to #DeepCutsChallenge creator McGraw with his version of “Seventeen.”
Dickerson tagged Thomas Rhett, who later jumped in with his favorite Hank Williams Jr. song “The Blues Man,” which Diplo raved about in the comments section. But the EDM mastermind wasn’t queued up next: It was “Heartless” collaborator Morgan Wallen who did the honors with Aldean’s “Water Tower.”
He then nominated Luke Combs, who got fans listening to Chris Stapleton‘s “What’re You Listening To,” one of Combs’ all-time favorite performance picks since college. After apologizing to Stapleton for messing up the bridge, he appointed Vince Gill to lay one down.
Stay tuned to which country stars keep the #DeepCutsChallenge alive, and watch the current thread, starting with McGraw, below.
