His voice is the kind of lonesome moan that suggests, surely, a life of trial and error; of sin and redemption; of incarceration and parole.
His sound is pure classic country.
He phrases things like a man who’s lived to tell the tale.
He sings of a time “when country music was alive and well, before it all went to hell.”
And as he sang those words recently at the Clark County Fair, accompanying himself with an acoustic guitar as part of the annual country music talent contest, the place was so quiet, you could practically hear people discreetly deleting Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts songs off their iPhones.
After all, coming from a voice like that, you take him at his word — that country music has indeed, unequivocally, gone straight to hell.
But just who is Wyatt McCubbin?
Well, last week, he went to Kings Island with his mom and sister one last time before school starts.
The week before, he got his driver’s permit.
Wyatt is only 15, and he looks it.
He just doesn’t sound it.
The Southeastern High School 10th-grader might well be the LeBron of country music.
The born natural.
The kid who’s destined for big things.
Just subtract the ego.
And if you don’t believe in destiny or fate, then chew on this — after just one trip to Nashville in June, Wyatt already has a manager.
And just this week, he was back in Nashville for only his second time, this time in a studio with Sawyer Brown lead singer Mark Miller producing.
“We didn’t go out looking for him by any means,” said Jerri Kay McCubbin, Wyatt’s mom. “He found us.”
Whether he one day finds himself a member of the Opry or whether he ultimately never leaves his patch of southern Clark County, Wyatt is going to have one doozy of a story to tell.
Nashville skyline
Thanks to the daughter of a family friend they’d never even met, the McCubbins had been invited to Nashville in June so that Wyatt could sing at a show honoring Merle Kilgore, the late songwriter who wrote “Ring of Fire” for Johnny Cash and managed Hank Williams Jr.
Only just a year before, Wyatt had written his first original song, “Big House in the Sky,” the very day his grandpa, a carpenter, died.
“It was sweet that he wrote a song for his grandpa,” Jerri Kay McCubbin recalled. “At that point, we had no idea what kind of talent he had.”
The family friend, a Nashville promoter who’s engaged to Kilgore’s son, was similarly unprepared for what was to come.
“She had no idea,” Jerri Kay McCubbin said.
“She said, ‘He’s going to be somebody,’ ” added Wyatt’s dad, Frank McCubbin, a union iron worker.
At the tribute, Wyatt sang Kilgore’s “More and More” — a No. 1 hit for Webb Pierce back in 1954 — and a scathing original, “Roots of Country Music,” which starts, “What happened to the music/Are we all too damn blind to see?”
“Nobody could really believe it,” Wyatt said. “Just like the fair.”
Oh, it gets better.
While in Nashville for a few days, Wyatt and his parents stayed at the Best Western on Music Row.
“I couldn’t get into half the bars,” he complained.
Not even with Mom and Dad.
“I promised Emily (Wyatt’s sister) I’d bring her back a Coyote Ugly shirt,” Jerri Kay McCubbin said, “but we couldn’t even get in because Wyatt was under age. We couldn’t even get in for lunch. We had to go to Hooters.”
Wyatt did, however, get to play the Best Western’s open-mic night, which left such an impression on the bar staff that they asked if he had a CD.
“That was a big accomplishment to me,” he said. “That was cool.”
So he left behind one of his homemade CDs.
Lest you think Frank and Jerri Kay McCubbin are shrewd stage parents who are pushing their teenage son into the spotlight, this story has as much to do with dumb luck as it does with destiny.
The family had slapped together a CD of Wyatt’s original music two weeks before the trip to Nashville.
“You just can’t take it to the radio station and they’ll play it,” said Jerri Kay McCubbin, still sounding almost surprised.
“We tried that,” Wyatt added.
But a week after the McCubbins returned home, his CD was still playing in the Best Western lounge — the sound of which stopped Ron Harris, who also manages Sawyer Brown and Bucky Covington, cold.
“I was looking for someone with that traditional voice,” Harris explained. “I just didn’t expect to find it from him.”
For starters, Harris said, he’s a minor.
“Most people, myself included, don’t deal with kids,” Harris said.
But after paying a visit to Wyatt and his family in July, Harris decided to go ahead and sign the teen to his O-Seven Artist Management roster.
In short, Wyatt has “huge potential,” according to Harris.
“When you’re listening to him,” he said, “you forget he’s 15.”
Move it on over
So how is Wyatt able to sound like someone who could at least be tried in court as an adult?
In an earlier, more superstitious era, he might have been suspected of going down to the crossroads.
If that’s the case, he didn’t have far to travel — his parents live at the four-way stop in Selma.
But in reality, he visited the 21st-century equivalent of the crossroads.
The Internet.
Wyatt taught himself how to play Hank Sr. songs by looking them up on YouTube.
“I love that steel guitar and just the raw emotions,” he said, explaining a love of classic country that was born while helping his grandpa restore a ’63 Ford short-bed truck. “Those guys really knew what they’re talking about.”
No, he’s never actually been to jail himself.
Never even been to the prom for that matter.
Harris wants to take his time in pitching Wyatt to record labels.
“He’s so young,” he said. “We’re going to get him into the studio to see what we have.”
But his age is also a selling point.
“It will definitely pique interest,” Harris said. “It makes people take a second look right off the bat. It generates interest that wouldn’t normally be there with a new artist.”
But in spirit, Wyatt has more in common with Waylon Jennings than Taylor Swift.
He can’t stand what passes for country these days.
“Waylon’s gone,” Wyatt said. “There aren’t any big role models who will step up and say, ‘Quit what you’re doing.’ There aren’t any outlaws.”
The notion that their son might be that renegade, at the ripe old age of 15, admittedly hasn’t sunk in at home.
“From a mom’s point of view,” Jerri Kay McCubbin said, “I’d like to see him enjoy his last couple years of high school.”
But she also realizes that this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“This is his chance,” she said.
So is it all just luck?
Nashville might be “half the town it used to be,” but it’s still capable of crushing dreams.
Turns out, Wyatt isn’t actually the lucky one.
“He has so much talent,” Harris said. “I’m the lucky one who found him.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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