As his current single “In Between” reaches the Top 10, country singer/songwriter Scotty McCreery returned to “American Idol” Sunday, May 17 to participate in a special performance of “We Are the World,” led by “American Idol” judges Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan and Katy Perry for the season 18 finale.
The special rendition of the GRAMMY-winning song featured additional “American Idol” alums performing from their homes, including Lauren Alaina, Kellie Pickler, Laine Hardy, Gabby Barrett, Alejandro Aranda, Jordin Sparks, Katharine McPhee, Phillip Phillips and Ruben Studdard.
“It’s always fun to participate in ‘American Idol,’ be it remotely from home or physically on that stage. It’s like a family reunion,” said McCreery. “But then to have the opportunity to sing ‘We are the World’ with Lionel Richie, the man who co-wrote the song and helped oversee the original event? That’s something I never would have dreamed of happening. Add in Luke, Katy, and all of these amazing talents including my buddy Lauren? It’s one of those unexpected fun opportunities that I’ll always treasure.”
McCreery’s current single, “In Between,” co-written with Frank Rogers, Jessi Alexander and Jonathan Singleton and produced by Rogers, continues to climb the charts and has reached No. 9 on the Billboard Country Airplay Chart and No. 7 on the Mediabase/Country Aircheck Country Singles Chart.
While following “safer at home” guidelines since mid-March, McCreery has already given nearly 70 live-stream performances ranging from Twitch Stream Aid to “Circle Sessions” to numerous Facebook and Instagram Live events with country radio stations across the nation and media outlets, which he has dubbed his “Somewhere in Quarantine Tour.” He’ll perform as part of “Feed the Front Line Live, Presented by CMT” on this Wednesday (5/20) on CMT’s Facebook and YouTube channels along with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Sheryl Crow and many more artists.
Hard at work on the follow up to his last album, the RIAA Gold-Certified Seasons Change, McCreery continues to reach new career milestones. Last month he hit 100 million views on YouTube for his No. 1 song and RIAA Double-Platinum-Certified “Five More Minutes”– making it one of only eight official music videos for country songs that have reached No. 1 on the Mediabase / Country Aircheck Country Singles Chart in the last two years to achieve this distinction. And earlier this month, McCreery became the first country music artist to present a virtual concert in an online gaming world on Club Cooee, performing for two consecutive weekends.
About Scotty McCreery
McCreery, whose current single is “In Between,” achieved new heights by earning two back-to-back No. 1 hits from his most recent album Seasons Change, the RIAA Gold certified project which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Album chart: the RIAA Double Platinum-certified “Five More Minutes” and the RIAA Platinum-certified “This is It,” which stayed at the top of the charts for two weeks. He co-wrote all 11 songs on Seasons Change. All four of his albums have debuted at No. 1 on a Billboard Albums chart, with current combined sales surpassing 3 million copies. He’s earned one Double Platinum, four Platinum and one Gold singles; won the 10th season of “American Idol” in 2011; was named the ACM New Artist of the Year in 2011; won the CMT Music Award for Breakthrough Video of the Year (“The Trouble with Girls”) in 2012; American Country Awards for New Artist of the Year in 2011 and Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2013; BMI Awards for writing One of the Top 50 Country Songs of the Year three times (in 2015 for “See You Tonight,” in 2018 for “Five More Minutes,” and in 2019 for “This is It”); a Carolina Beach Music Award for National Dance/Shag Song of the Year (“Barefootin’”) in 2018; and the NSAI Nashville Songwriter Award for One of the Top Ten Songs I Wish I’d Written (“Five More Minutes”) in 2018. The North Carolina native released his first book, Go Big or Go Home: The Journey Toward the Dream, in 2016; it was recently re-released in paperback in 2020. McCreery launched his recording career by making history in 2011 as both the first country artist and the youngest male artist of any genre to debut his first studio album, the Platinum-certified Clear as Day, at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. For more information, visit ScottyMcCreery.com.