A little Charlie Puth back story for you. In May of 2015, I was the Program Director or our iHeartRadio station 98.9 RadioNOW in Louisville, Kentucky. I was offered a job to move to Nashville, my dream city, to be the program director of my dream station, 107.5 the River. I grew up listening to the station and have always wanted to come back "home" (I was born in Huntsville, Alabama) to work here.
Anyway, the day that I was offered the job here, my rep from Atlantic Records came into my office in Kentucky and played me a song from a new artist named Charlie Puth. I was sort of familiar with Charlie from his feature on Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again", which was just starting to take off from the Furious 7 soundtrack, but needless to say he was far from a household name.
The song that my Atlantic rep (shout out Howard Lesnick) played for me was called "Marvin Gaye" and it featured an artist who I'd become semi-friends with named Meghan Trainor. I heard the song and LOVED it. In fact, it was the very first song that I personally added to 107.5 the River's playlist. And I'm pretty sure we were the first station in America to officially put it in as well.
Over the years we've gotten to know Charlie pretty well. He's performed an acoustic lounge here for a few of you guys, and it was pretty evident from the get-go that he was going to be a superstar.
A few months later, right as "One Call Away" was becoming a huge hit, we took him to surprise a fan at Mt Juliet Middle School, for God's sake
And of course last year he capped off our 2nd Annual "River on the Rooftop" series down at the Hard Rock on Broadway.
Anyway, this is a really long-winded way of saying that Charlie is a really special artist to me and to this radio station, so any time he puts his talent on display we're like the gushing big brother that can't stop talking about it.
Which is an even more long-winded way of saying HOLY CRAP WOULD YOU LISTEN TO THIS NEW SONG!?!?
It's Charlie and Boyz II Men...yes, THAT Boyz II Men. It's called "If You Leave Me Now" and you're about to be obsessed. You're welcome.
Huge kudos to Charlie on another great song, and we look forward to the Voicenotes album, whenever it does come out
And if you wanna hang with Charlie and our other bestie Hailee Steinfeld when they're in town August 28th, you can win your way in here!