Dustin Lynch brought the neo-traditionalist influence of Alan Jackson, Clint Black, and George Strait into the 2010s and spiced it up with a dash of something new. Born in Tennessee in 1985, Lynch went to college in Nashville, but he already had music on his mind, occupying an apartment right behind the legendary country hub The Bluebird Café and playing there as much as he could. By 2012 he had released his self-titled debut album; his deep, oaky voice and mix of country and rock flavours helped make it a No. 1 country record. (Lynch’s movie-star mug probably didn’t hurt his appeal.) He earned a huge hit straight out of the gate with the twang-soaked, moody-but-romantic ballad “Cowboys and Angels.” But Lynch let the world in on a little of his range when the party-starting title track from his 2014 follow-up, Where It’s At, became a country chart-topper. Not one to stand still, Lynch opened his sound up to modern pop and R&B influences on 2017’s Current Mood, and the soul-inflected “Small Town Boy” turned into one of his biggest hits. He fanned those flames a little further in 2020 on Tullahoma, producing seamless country/R&B mergers like the platinum single “Ridin’ Roads.”