• 18-year-old Timmy McKeever is a rising, California-born country music singer-songwriter based in Nashville.
• He released a reworked cover of Megan Moroney’s “Tennessee Orange” from a male perspective.
• McKeever aims to transition from theorizing about life experiences in his songs to writing about actual experiences.

Just at the cusp of 20, Nashville-based and Big Loud-signed singer-songwriter Timmy McKeever is among a slew of youthful entertainers, all with a decade-plus of experience, having a moment in country’s mainstream.

Think of his appeal as existing somewhere between the folksy 23-year-old touring-beloved country star Wyatt Flores and the thoughtful, intentional 24-year-old rising country performer Alana Springsteen.

Or, ask McKeever himself for his opinion on where his work as a guitar-strumming and crooning singer-songwriter learning about life as much as he’s living it is aimed at these days.

“Dierks Bentley meets Cody Johnson. An artist whose body of work — like their songs ‘5150,’ ‘Dirt Cheap’ and ‘The Painter,’ shows timelessness and evolution but always connects to listeners’ hearts.”

Spending the senior year in Music City

When speaking with The Tennessean early on a spring morning, McKeever’s youth is nowhere near the conversation. It’s not just because, when you ask him about the artists whose success he aims to emulate, he’s speaking like an artist twice his age.

Being more in Music City than back in Los Angeles’ suburbs these days has matured him quickly. By his own admission, he spent only three days on campus at Mater Dei High School before returning last spring for his senior prom and graduation.

His growing skill and stardom in country music created a whirlwind high school career.

Six years ago, barely 13 and in middle school, he and his guitar traveled across the country, ending up in Music City and meeting with Big Machine Records.

During this era, he also recalls childhood afternoons when his parents would sneak him into bars to play impromptu sets.

He’s still close to being age-appropriate for those gigs, but that didn’t stop him from appearing at a Billboard Country Live on the Rise concert at Luke Combs’ Category 10 during CMA Fest.

Presume that his growing appeal as a country performer will cause him to face much less questioning regarding his presence in bars and clubs for at least the next three years of his life.

‘Tennessee Orange (Breakup Version)’

McKeever’s keenly aware that he’s on the cusp of a breakout.

Streaming numbers indicate that his music is being engaged with, on average, half a million times a month. Additionally, he has 200,000 followers on both TikTok and Instagram. Identify that just before his debut hit “Fall in Love” achieved acclaim in 2022, Bailey Zimmerman was in a similar position after switching from being championed by the automotive community to being a viral, rising country star.

This is the era in which swift, savvy moves are essential to taking country success to the next level.

Related, McKeever has released a re-written, stand-alone cover of ACM and CMA award-winning performer Megan Moroney’s “Tennessee Orange.” The superstar and her team even co-sign his version.

McKeever was joined by two female co-writers, Tori Hughes and Taylor Teasley, for the track.

Two years ago, after witnessing his struggle in attempting to cover the song upon request, they set out to rewrite it from the perspective of a University of Georgia student heartbroken by Moroney’s University of Tennessee-adoring protagonist.

Though the track hasn’t immediately surged, it’s stacked like cordwood on top of a growing slate of well-regarded material from his six-month-old debut album, “Devils and Angels.”

The value of ‘finally experiencing stories about life’

“Writing and working with so many awesome artists has made me a more disciplined and creative person, able to balance and manage my time between the grind of what has become my job,” McKeever says.

He’s now a performer who spends summers on the road opening for artists like breakout 2020s era chart-topper Gabby Barrett. However, to do so, he’s still largely dependent upon a rinse, wash, repeat cycle of songwriting, recording, playing gigs large and small, then constantly posting about them on multiple social media platforms to maintain his career growth.

McKeever excitedly imagines that the next chapter of his career will be marked by songs defined by his growth from “theorizing stories about life to analyzing and finally experiencing them.”

When asked about the value of smartly contemplating his career at this point as both highlighting the value of repetition in pressure-packed situations and maintaining a nose-to-the-grindstone mentality and a tunnel-vision scope on stardom, he displays a “yes, sir, no, sir” humility when describing his best next steps.

“I’m willing to pick up the skills and do the work required to get ahead consistently.”