When Rory Feek moved to Music City in 1995 to pursue
his songwriting career, he methodically searched out Harlan Howard and
introduced himself one day, at the Sunset Grill. Talk about having great
instincts … Howard signed Feek to his first publishing deal but, the
last thing that Rory ever expected, when he moved to Nashville was that,
he would become an award-winning artist, a record producer, a TV
producer, a hit songwriter and that he would meet the love of his life,
at The Bluebird Café, Miss Joey Martin. Four months after they started
dating, they were married and 4 albums later Joey+Rory have quickly
become America’s favorite husband & wife duo, as a result of THE
JOEY+RORY SHOW on the RFD Network.
Before they met, Feek’s career as a songwriter had already taken off and
Martin was signed to Sony as a solo artist but as they say, GOD had
other plans. Martin and Sony had difficulty agreeing on her direction so
in 2005, Joey left Sony and around the same time Rory and his friend
and co-writer Tim Johnson formed their own imprint Giantslayer Records
and began producing project, including two albums on Blaine Larsen,
which they co-ventured with BNA Records and had the top 12 country radio
hit “How Do You Get That Lonely” that Rory co-wrote.
One day in late 2007, a friend of Joey and Rory’s suggested that they
team up as a duo and audition for a new show on CMT called CAN YOU DUET.
Although Rory had his reservations about being an artist, he agreed to
give it a try. So he bought a video camera, shot an audition tape at
their farm south of Nashville and Joey dropped it off to the producers,
along with a roll of Pecan Sticky Buns that she baked.
“I never, ever in a million years thought that I would be singing with
Joey, be a part of producing projects with her or doing television. But
now, they kind of make sense because all of those things where you step
out on a limb become amazing training ground for what you learn down the
road.”
In 2008, Joey+Rory placed 3rd on CMTs “Can You Duet” which led them to a
record deal with Vanguard/Sugar Hill Records. Their first album THE
LIFE OF A SONG was produced by multi-Grammy winner Carl Jackson and it
debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, and sold
300,000 copies. Carl also produced their first holiday single that year,
“It’s Christmas Time”, which was done in partnership with CMT One
Country, who donated a portion of proceeds from the single to various
charities including The Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee. In
2009 they were nominated for both CMA Vocal Duo of the year and ACM Top
Vocal Duo of the Year and the following year, Joey+Rory released ALBUM
NUMBER TWO and won 2010 ACM Top New Vocal Duo of the Year. The lead-off
single, “This Song’s for You”, was released to radio in July 2010; The
music video was directed by Darren Doane and was released in August 2010
and “That’s Important to Me” was released as the album’s second single
in October 2010. The following year, they released their first Christmas
album, A FARMHOUSE CHRISTMAS and that same year, they took home 2011
Vocal duo of the Year from the ICMA Awards. Their third studio album,
HIS AND HERS, was released in July, 2012. “When I’m Gone” and
“Josephine” served as the album’s first two “his and hers” singles and
were simultaneously released to radio before the album. The duo has also
appeared in many national television commercials for the online
retailer Overstock.com.
Rea James