Scotty Emerick was fated to be a musician and songwriter. He

Scotty Emerick was fated to be a musician and songwriter. He started playing guitar at
the age of six and almost immediately was performing at family gatherings. “Always very
country,” he says. “I liked Hank Sr., Emmylou, and Glen Campbell.”
By the time he was 11 or 12, Scotty was playing Moose Lodges and VFW halls, “In high
school, it was always just me and my guitar,” he says, “playing where and whenever I could.
By the time I was a teenager, I knew I would end up in Nashville.” Still, when he graduated
from high school in Vero Beach, Florida, he went to firefighter school.
But he is a musician, so a year later, he moved to Music City. Most writers can tell long
stories of heartbreak before their big break. Scotty had only been in town about six months,
working at the Spaghetti Factory restaurant, when he met Bryan White, who didn’t have
anything going on at the time, either. They started writing together and Emerick soon had a
writing gig at a company owned by Mark Miller, lead singer for Sawyer Brown. One of the
songs he and Bryan wrote, “I Don’t Believe In Goodbye,” became a hit for Sawyer Brown in
1995. Over the next four years, Scotty had two more hits with Sawyer Brown, “Round Here”
and “She’s Gettin’ There,” and a half dozen more album cuts by the group. He’s also had cuts
by George Strait, Bryan White, and Ronnie Milsap.
Scotty is best known for his songwriting association with Toby Keith. In 1997 the two met,
and have enjoyed a phenomenal collaboration over five albums: one song on Keith’s How
Do You Like Me Now?; five songs from Pull My Chain, including the #1 “I’m Just Talkin’
About Tonight”; seven on Unleashed, featuring the #1 duet with Willie Nelson, “Beer For My
Horses”; six on Shock ‘N Y’all, with the #1s “I Love This Bar” and “Whiskey Girl”; three on
Keith’s Greatest Hits Vol, II, highlighted by the new recording, “Go With Her”; and nine on
Toby Keith’s current Honkytonk University, including the #1 “As Good As I Once Was.” Scotty
plays acoustic guitar and sings backing vocals on numerous Keith tracks. He is a frequent
performer on Keith’s national stadium and arena tours, as well as on the entertainer’s USO
tours to US military bases in Germany, Afghanistan, and the Persian Gulf.
Emerick has also released four singles of his own, including the duet, “I Can’t Take You
Anywhere”, a collaboration with Keith and the first of two singles from a duet album for
Dream Works Records, Nashville. After the closure of Dream Works’ recording division, he
signed to Toby’s label, Show Dog, Nashville, where he released another single. One of his
songs, “What’s Up With That?” was featured in the film Broken Bridges. An album titled Love
Me Like My Dog was released under an independent lable in 2007 and is able to be found
on CD Baby.
In addition to frequent trips to the top of the country charts, last year saw Emerick producing
his debut album, The Coast Is Clear, and collecting Songwriter of the Year honors from the
Nashville Songwriters Association International.
“I eat, sleep, and drink music,” Scotty says. “I’m always gonna do it, no matter what happens.”