Chris Young is an artist with a healthy respect for traditional country music, and he’s often talked about Keith Whitley as one of his big heroes. So when Chris recorded his just-released digital Voices EP, one of the songs had to be a Keith Whitley favorite, and Chris chose one called “I’m Over You.” Chris says it was a humbling experience to try his hand at the EP’s trio of classic songs, which also includes John Anderson‘s “Swingin'” and Vern Gosdin‘s “Chiseled in Stone.” But he’d love to think that there might be a few people — maybe some younger fans — who missed hearing those hits the first time and who might become inspired to discover the original recordings. Chris admits that if anyone ever told him they had become a fan of Keith Whitley’s music — or John Anderson’s or Vern Gosdin’s — because they’d heard his EP, that would totally make his day. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• You can pick up Chris’ Voices EP — an acoustic, three-song collection — exclusively at the iTunes Store.
• And while you’re expanding your Chris Young music collection, make sure you’ve got his latest album, The Man I Want to Be, featuring back-to-back number-one hits with the title track and “Gettin’ You Home.”

  Chris Young says it’s humbling to think that people buy his records, even more so when he’s recording some classic hits from his heroes. (:50)
“It’s kind of weird that people are actually gonna hear stuff I record. I know that sounds stupid (laughs) after bein’ on a label for four years, but sometimes I still stop; I’m like, ‘Man, people actually buy my record…that’s kind of weird.’ And yeah, it’s very humbling, and I mean, again, this is…that’s exactly what this project was. It was so cool, but it’s also very humbling. I mean, these songs, there’s such, almost like a reverence with these songs, because they’re so classic and so well known that you definitely want to do your best job on ’em and try and put…it’s almost like when I recorded these, it’s just guitar and your vocal, so it can’t get more clear cut than that. And bein’ able to take these and speak to people… maybe somebody’ll hear these songs that hadn’t heard the originals before, and they’ll go find the original and see how great that really was. ”

  Chris Young hopes he can turn fans onto some of the original artists whose music he recorded for his Voices EP. (:11)
“If there’s one person that picks this up, loves it, or there’s one person that picks these up and goes and finds the originals and falls in love with them, then I’ve way overdone anything I expected to do.” 

  Chris Young would be floored if someone actually discovered Keith Whitley because of him. (:22)
“If anybody ever came to me and was like, ‘I’d never really heard Keith Whitley’s stuff…you know, I kind of knew who he was, but I’d never heard his stuff until I listened to this, and I decided to go back and listen to his stuff, and now I kind of know Keith Whitley because I listened to your EP.’ That would be the strangest thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life. You know, that’d blow my mind. I wouldn’t even know what to say about that, but yeah, it’d be pretty cool.”