We might be a bunch of two jump chumps here at Holler, but we’re suckers for a good rodeo song. And when the artist singing it just happens to be a real-life saddle bronc cowboy? Well, all the better for it.
Chancey Williams isn’t cosplaying a cowboy when he puts on that hat. As one of only two artists to both compete in the rodeo and perform on the main stage at Cheyenne Frontier Days, like Chris Ledoux before him, Williams is the next truly authentic cowboy of country music.
He’s gone from competing at rodeos to being one of the hottest neo-traditionalist country artists around, and his new single, ‘Only the Good Ones’, is a further reminder to everyone that you’re never going to amount to anything hanging in the D’s. Life’s about taking the bull by the horns and letting it pound you into the ground every now and then.
“Only the good ones drive a man to drink alone / the better they are the closer they cut to the bone”, he sings on the driving rodeo anthem, mixing the warmth and charm of George Strait with the grizzle and grit of Cody Johnson.
“It’s a rodeo cowboy song I wrote with Trent Willmon and Bobby Pinson,” explains Williams. “This cowboy gets bucked off a great horse and maybe it’s his last one and it hurts, ya know? At the same time, he has a girl he really cares about and she leaves him. Things in life come and go, and a person has ups and downs, but only the good ones really hurt when the opportunity is missed or they’re gone.”