JIMMIE ALLEN

                                                            "Down Home" 

                                                            Stoney Creek Records

Jimmie Allen quickly went from being one of country music’s most buzzed about new artists, to one of the genres elite male acts; achieving huge success with #1 hits “Best Shot,” “Make Me Want To,” and “Freedom Was a Highway,” earning the CMA Award in 2020 for Best New Artist, as well as the ACM Award for New Male Artist that same year.

And just last week during his turn as an ACM Awards co-host, Allen also delivered his most personal song to date with an incredible performance of his brand-new single, “Down Home,” a song honoring his late father.

Co-written by Allen with Cameron Bedell, Rian Ball, and Tate Howell, the amazing tribute to his father plays out like a conversation/prayer between father and son as he’s simply saying thank you for making me the man that I am while also filling him on everything that’s been happening since he left for heaven.

Starting with the prayer like feature of the song, Allen sings us through the opening verse by wondering what heaven is like for his father as he muses that he’s probably up there making new friends, fishing if there’s a pond, making everybody laugh with his jokes, and shining his light through his big smile.

However, Allen smoothly then moves the lyrics to focus on filling in his dad on everything that’s been going on “down home,” from the simple everyday things such as mama still cooking grits, to the much more complex things such as hoping he’s making his dad proud, which is where the true depth of the lyric sits.

He sings in the hook, “I hope I'm making you proud ‘cause I know you're up there looking down home,” allowing Allen to then use a list like fashion throughout the majority of the song to talk one-on-one with his dad about all the different ways that he hopes he’s making him proud: 

“I promise I'm working with this guitar about as hard as I can.”

“I met a girl, bought a house, put a nice little payment down home.”

“I got a daughter now I really wish you'd have met.”

With deeply personal lyrics that connect with anyone who’s lost a parent, it’s easy to gravitate to a song like this. However, I absolutely love that the melody is upbeat and catchy rather than slow paced and sad. Although Allen does transparently sing of hating that his dad is gone and wishing that he was still here, the positive vibe of the melody shows that Allen is leaning into his faith and completely embracing his role as the one who’s carrying on the morals and values that he learned from his dad while passing them down to the next generation.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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