Blake Shelton is a country boy through and through.
Since Shelton has always been proud of his country roots, it only makes sense that he would chose to cover the anthem for country boys everywhere, Hank Williams Jr.‘s “A Country Boy Can Survive.”
“A Country Boy Can Survive” was both written and recorded by Williams and released as a single in 1982. The song peaked at the #2 spot on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, and is considered to be one of Williams’ signature songs even to this day.
Shelton chose to perform his rendition of Williams’ song during a concert at the Lorain County Fair in Ohio on August, 2008.
Before singing, Shelton jokes around with the crowd as he sits down and grabs his guitar.
“I‘m a redneck y’all. I’ll be real honest with ya, I can’t tell you a damn thing about your heritage and all that stuff, but y’all got some big deer in this area.“
Shelton then introduces the song by saying he’s about to play something everyone should enjoy.
“If you come out to see me, you’ve got to be a freakin’ redneck. So let’s do a song for people like us here tonight.”
Then with a few heavy strums on the guitar, Shelton leads into “A Country Boy Can Survive.”
A train whistle can be heard in the distance as he sings, and Shelton decides to take advantage of the situation to change up the words to the song a bit, singing, “and a country boy can survive, even as a train goes by.”
But besides that one humorous moment, Shelton’s performance is actually quite serious, and powerful as well. The crowd sings along with him and cheers every time he takes a short break.
Shelton finishes his performance on a strong note, with the crowd erupting into cheers and applause at the end.
Since Shelton is such a talented singer and a hard-core country boy, he seems like the perfect person to cover a major hit like “A Country Boy Can Survive.”
