Like many before him, South Carolina native Ricky Young traveled a long and winding road to Nashville. As a former University of South Carolina alum and baseball player, he spent five years after college in the minor leagues, playing gigs anywhere he could find a stage and the time.
As fate would have it, in 2011 he met Grammy winning producer, Nick Autry at a benefit show in North Carolina. The pair hit it off instantaneously and Young began traveling to Nashville from Carolina to record Spinning My Wheels with Autry—a 16 track, soulful country record that plays like an ode to Carolina, written with some of Music Row’s biggest names: Lee Brice, Dave Gibson and Jeffery Steele, to name a few.
If there is a “correct way” to come to Nashville, Young is textbook. He has established himself as a student of the craft of songwriting, securing coveted co-writes with Luke Combs, Zac Brown Band, Lee Brice, Love and Theft, Dave Gibson. Young’s first single “Could You Love Me Again” hit radio in February of 2013. His YouTube channel has over 2 million views. Young collaborated with long-time friend and Carolina crooner, Lee Brice, on a gritty country rock track titled "I Carry It With Me." Young has toured and played nationwide since 2001 and has opened up for artists like Eric Church, Blake Shelton, Reba McEntire, Lee Brice, Jerrod Niemann, Eli Young Band, Darius Rucker, Montgomery Gentry, Tyler Farr, Parmalee, Craig Campbell, Chase Rice and many more. Young released an EP in the fall of 2014, with cameos from ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Bubba Sparxxx.
In 2015, at a Nashville songwriters round, Young met a young new singer-songwriter from North Carolina named Luke Combs. The two hit it off and Young asked Combs to join his tour. They wrote songs while touring including a tune Shell Shocked that landed on Young’s Shock Moves EP in 2016. As it turns out, this was Luke Combs first time touring as a Nashville singer-songwriter-artist. Needless to say, it all worked out for Luke Combs! Young says that being a small part of Luke’s career has been one of the most gratifying parts of moving to Nashville.
Most recently, Young partook in a year-long residency at Flora-bama where he played over 150 gigs since 2020. He now resides in Jupiter, FL where he writes along the coast and is living his best "pretired" life.
