Multiplatinum country singer/songwriter/producer Chris Young has signed with Black River Entertainment’s Black River Records roster.
Joining Black River marks a major career shift for Young, who had previously been with Sony Music Nashville’s RCA Nashville imprint since the start of his career, signing there in 2006.
Young has released nine studio albums, amassed over 9 billion on-demand streams, notched 11 Billboard Country Airplay chart-topping songs and has earned numerous ACM, CMA, CMT and Grammy Awards nominations. He’s won two CMT Music Awards for performance of the year (for his song “Drowning”) and collaborative video of the year (for the “Famous Friends” music video with Kane Brown).
This year, the Grand Ole Opry member registered another Country Airplay top five with “Young Love & Saturday Nights,” the title track to his most recent album, which was released in March.
“Nineteen years is an amazingly long time to have a career, much less be at one place with one team,” Young told Billboard. “This is the next chapter for me and I couldn’t be more excited to be where I’m at.”
Young says his deal with Sony ended around September. “I had the chance to be a free agent. I felt sort of like an athlete a little bit,” he says. “I was prepared to take all these [label] meetings, and I went in and [Black River Records] were the first meeting. By the end of that meeting, I told them, ‘I want to be here.’”
Black River Records is also home to artists including five-time Grammy nominee Kelsea Ballerini, Scotty Hasting, Pryor Baird and MaRynn Taylor.
Though Young is the newest addition to the Black River Records roster, he has long had ties to the company. His 2012 song “Neon” was an early Black River Publishing cut, and he recorded his albums I’m Comin’ Over and Losing Sleep (both of which debuted at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart), as well as his holiday album It Must Be Christmas, at the company’s Sound Stage Studios.
Young hints there is new music already on the way.
“[Black River] had done their research and they were like, ‘We want you to be part of this group. We’re ready to go to work immediately.’ And I gave them a dropbox with 20 songs in it,” Young recalled.
Black River Entertainment president and CEO Gordon Kerr tells Billboard, “I really do think his music is the soundtrack to a generation of country music. I’ve heard some of the music that’s coming and he’s going to deliver on that… I’m so grateful to RCA and [former label head] Joe Galante and the staff for pouring into Chris for 19 years. That’s really important for us to be able to give them the kudos and respect, because they helped Chris build that. For us, the future is to say that we are going to take that and build on it.”
Earlier this year, Young made another career shift, switching management from The AMG to Red Light Management, with Kailyn Finnegan serving as Young’s manager.
Now heading into 2025 with a new label deal in place, Young says, “I really do feel like it’s set up to be an incredible year. I’m really happy and excited for the beginning of next year, for everybody to hear all this.”
