At age 12, singer-songwriter Canaan Smith began playing guitar as a coping mechanism after his brother died in a car accident. The album Bronco is named in his brother’s honor. ∙ Well before his own songs found an audience, Smith scored a Top 10 Country hit as cowriter of Love and Theft’s “Runaway.” ∙ “Love You Like That,” the first single from Bronco, spent almost an entire year climbing Billboard’s Country Airplay chart before landing at No. 1. ∙ When his college pals Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line launched Round Here Records in 2019, Smith was their first signing. ∙ He’s appeared on reality TV twice—first as a contestant on The Amazing Race, then as a guest on Bar Rescue, performing his track “Hole In a Bottle.”