Chuck Allen Floyd

Chuck Allen Floyd - "Tonight An Angel Fell"

Chuck Allen's Floyd's new CD is a fun, honky tonkin', great CD with a touch of genius! First of all, Chuck has incredible vocals and either wrote or co-wrote every song. His writing is so very clever; so please listen to "Two Words", "I'm Not That Drunk Yet", "Forget Her Pill" and "She's Gone and She's Never Coming Back"…you will then know what I mean.

When it's time to get serious, Chuck is right there with "Every Heart Oughtta Have One," and the title cut, "Tonight An Angel Fell."

All in all, I just can't say enough good things about this CD… so run, don't walk to pick this one up and grab a six pack on the way!

Chuck Allen Floyd will be "Livin' Like A Rock Star In A Honky Tonk Band" for a long, long time!

Gary Barton
TMTR
Texas Music Radio Show
- Best In Texas Magazine

Once upon a time Chuck Allen Floyd's job description required him to put on a charcoal suit, dress shirt and red tie to look the part in his role as corporate attorney for a Dallas law firm.

A former college classmate from Nashville, Tenn., mailed him a music CD that the musician classmate had made.
"I put in his CD and said, 'That sounds like fun,'" Floyd said. "What I was doing was not fun. I just quit. I sold the house and I was gone."

Fresh start

So the Tecumseh native acted on his epiphany, moved to Nashville and began working on making it in his new career as a songwriter.

He wrote scores of songs and visited publishing houses one after another, trying to win a job as a professional songwriter. It took three years.

"I went to 50 or 60 auditions a year to try to get one of those deals," Floyd said. "They always said the same thing. You go in and play them a few songs. They say 'That is really good, I like that. When you write three or four more come back and play them.'"

Finally, Floyd refused to take "no" for an answer when confronted with the same roadblock at Nashville's Blacktop Publishing.

"I said, I'm going to bring you two new songs a week until you sign me," Floyd said.

"He said 'Well, if you can do that, I will be impressed.' So, after a month of bringing him two new songs a week he said 'I believe you are serious about this.' So he signed me."

Working the dream

Since that day in 2004, Floyd has written more than 100 songs per year, delivering them to Blacktop Publishing in exchange for a small salary and the promise of a big payday if the right recording artist selects one of the songs and it becomes a hit.

Liz Hengber, a Nashville-based songwriter who has collaborated with Floyd on some songs, described him as an "amazing" writer."He's probably one of the most amazing writers I've known," Hengber said."Lyrically and musically, he's got it all. He's charming; the girls love him."

Floyd graduated from Ada High School, where he learned to play the guitar as a high school senior and began writing "really, really bad songs before I could play three chords."

He started college at East Central University in Ada, but finished his undergraduate degree at Belmont University in Nashville.

Then he came back to Oklahoma and earned a law degree from the University of Oklahoma Law School for a short-lived career as a corporate attorney.

No more red ties

Meanwhile, Floyd, 35, has recorded an album of his own compositions and is back in Oklahoma playing gigs around the state and promoting his music on radio stations in Oklahoma and Texas.

On a recent late-summer morning, Floyd sat on the patio at the downtown Java Dave's and discussed his life as a songwriter. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and looking very casual.

The new fashion rules are part of why he describes song writing as the ultimate cool job.

"I can't imagine a cooler job, honestly," he said. "There are several reasons. No. 1 is the dress code. No charcoal suits and red ties for me. It's this." - Daily Oklahoman

Norman-based country singer-songwriter Chuck Allen Floyd won first place in the country division of the 17th Annual Billboard World Music Contest over the weekend.
His winning song is titled “Wishing He Was You.”
This marks the second year in a row that one of Floyd’s songs has won the contest’s country genre, according to a news release.
For hear the song or get more information, go to www.chuckallenfloyd.com or http://www.myspace.com/chuckallenfloyd. If you like what you hear, he has a new album called “Good on the Inside” for sale on his Web site.
For a full list of Billboard World Music Contest winners, click here.
Congratulations to this great Oklahoma musical talent on his big win.
-BAM - BAM's Blog (newsok.com)

Review:

January 24, 2010

There are no epiphanies in the world of Chuck Allen Floyd. There is no sudden spiritual or physical healing, no salvation through the love of a good woman, no grand promises of a better tomorrow. That’s not to say that Good On the Inside, his follow-up to 2008’s Tonight An Angel Fell, is devoid of grace and mercy. However, Floyd’s appreciation of life and its pleasures (and pain) is a bit more hard-won.

That concept mirrors Floyd’s own personal journey. When a three-year stint in Nashville failed to yield desired results, he set his guitar aside and enrolled in law school. It was only after passing the bar and beginning to practice law that he discovered he couldn’t leave his passion behind. The prodigal son returned to music, eventually landing a songwriting deal with Clint Black’s Blacktop Music Group. Now playing predominantly in Oklahoma and Texas with his band the Liars Club and contributing cuts to other artists’ records, he has never looked back.

Good On the Inside isn’t a dour record. It’s actually quite a bit of fun without being mind-numbing. Floyd and the Liars Club (Jon Knudson, Bart Weilburg, Thomas Young, and Justin Morris) deliver country-rock packed with plenty of hooks and manage to make it all seem effortless. Vocally, Floyd channels enough impishness and tenderness to charm his way into unsuspecting hearts.

The title track, a nod to regaining emotional peace of mind, manages to be uplifting without veering headfirst into schmaltzy territory. Stressing self-empowerment, Floyd sings “I didn’t see a blinding light on some Damascus road/Didn’t shake a demon that was eating at my soul.” The song helps establish the tone of the record, which discusses weathering personal and professional storms and emerging (most of the time) with dignity intact.

Refreshingly, Floyd clearly isn’t looking for anyone to save him from his tortured soul. When love blooms it’s rooted in flaws and forgiveness (“She Loves Me Anyway”) or based on passion meeting compassion (“Friendship on Fire”). Even portraits of heartbreak such as “What Are Fools For” center more on mutual respect and hope for a renewed relationship than dependency.

Two of the album’s highlights revolve around unanswered prayers. The striking story song “Nothing But Hard Times” potently chronicles a protagonist vainly trying to ward off ill health, mounting bills, and economic ruin. Anguished, he admits “When I pray/ I pray the Lord will finally cut me down/When I dream/I dream of shovels striking at the ground.” In desperation he makes a move that literally brings the flames of hell to his heels.



Alternately, “Hey God” is a cheeky take on not always getting the things that you want. Slightly irreverent and fueled by virtuoso performances from the Liars Club, it’s a stand-out that should get audiences singing along.

However, in the stripped down closer “All This Love”, Floyd proves equally adept at quieter moments. Accompanied only by sparse guitar, he sings haltingly of loneliness that threatens to consume him even under the most ordinary circumstances. While ”Good On the Inside” acknowledged that “the mirror doesn’t show” the positive changes, anyone who’s ever suffered a broken heart will easily recognize himself in the details of “All This Love.”

Good On the Inside certainly leans more toward Top 40 material (the album includes a cover of Eddie Rabbitt’s smash “Drivin’ My Life Away”) than some of the other recommendations on the blog, but I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy the album as much as I did. I have some questions about the sequencing of the album (in particular following “Good On the Inside” with “Nothing But Hard Times”) and could have done without the inclusion of “I Love You Drunk” but those are relatively minor qualms. At the very least, with a first place win in last year’s Billboard World Song Contest (for his composition “Borrowed Wings“) in the country category under his belt and songs from his debut in rotation on the Texas charts , it’ll be worth watching Floyd as he continues to build a following. - Melodic Sunburst

March 8, 2010

By Aaron Wright
The Norman Transcript

Norman — For two years in a row, Norman musician Chuck Allen Floyd has found his name in the slot for No. 1 country song in the Billboard World Music Contest.

Floyd, a country singer and songwriter, said he first entered a song in the contest two years ago and then forgot he had entered. He was in for a pleasant surprise when he received notification of his win. After his good luck from last year, Floyd decided to submit another song. This year he selected “Wishing He Was You,” from his album “Good on the Inside.” Again, he sailed to the top spot.

Floyd is a relatively recent name on the local scene. He returned to Norman from Nashville in 2008. Before that, he had spent years writing songs for a publishing company Blacktop Music Group, Inc. in Tennessee.

“My songs have been almost recorded by everyone from George Strait to Keith Urban,” said Floyd, who pointed out that almost was the key word. He’s still looking for that lucky break, crossing his fingers for Strait.

“I’ve always really wanted a Strait cut,” he said.

Floyd got the gig as a songwriter by picking up the tab for Nashville musicians. On his second move to Nashville, in attempts to break into the music world, Floyd attended several shows. He would buy the artist a beer and ask their advice on the music scene.

“They helped me develop a plan,” he said.

In his songwriting days, Floyd would also play shows on weekends, trying to keep his skills fresh.

Eventually, he decided he needed a change so he packed up and headed west, to Norman. Here, he put together a band of local musicians to form his band.

“Everybody’s really focused on this, very dedicated,” he said.

The band travels frequently to Texas for shows as well as booking local gigs. They put out the “Good on the Inside” album Jan. 7 and are already in the works preparing for the next.

“The biggest goal right now is to keep this band going because it’s going so well,” said Floyd.

He is also looking to sign a new publishing deal, giving him a chance to revisit songwriting, a passion he ranks slightly above performances.

“I love playing, but if I had to choose ...,” he explained, trailing off.

To see what other artists placed in the 17th Annual Billboard World Song Contest visit billboardsongcontest.com, under “Latest News” section.

Aaron Wright 366-3531 pop@normantranscript.com - The Norman Transcript