VOA标准英语2010年-Patience, Perseverance Pay Off for Dav（在线收听）

It's taken a lot of patience and perseverance for David Nail to make it in Nashville's competitive Country music industry. 

The title track from David Nail's debut album, "I'm About To Come Alive," is a cover of one of his favorite rock groups, Train.  He's been performing the song at his concerts for more than five years, and calls it "a constant in his career."

It took nearly a decade and two moves to Nashville for David to earn his big break in Country music.  His first record deal with Mercury Records ended soon after he was signed, which led to his first album being shelved.  David left the music business and coached a Nashville baseball team, but returned in 2007 when he was signed to MCA Records.  He says the obstacles he faced along the way helped make him a better artist. 

David grew up in the small Midwestern town of Kennett, Missouri.  It was there that he was introduced to Country music.

"I remember walking over to my grandparents' house one day, and my grandmother had just discovered the Columbia House [album buying club] thing,"  he said.  "She had some Randy Travis there and some Vince Gill.  I had no idea who these people were, so, of course, I was just curious.  [I] started listening to them and immediately was drawn to Vince Gill.  It just seemed like his songs were so great, the melodies were so great.  I guess that's when I probably started singing, not having a clue that I was going to pursue it as a career later in life."

Last year, David's first Top 10 hit, "Red Light," set a record for the longest-charted song in Mediabase history.  Mediabase is a service that tracks radio airplay of music. 

David co-wrote five of the tracks on "I'm About To Come Alive."  The album also includes songs penned by Rascal Flatts' lead singer Gary LeVox and Kenny Chesney, who co-wrote David's latest single, "Turning Home."

"When I first heard the song, I was 26 or 27 years old, and it was very much in a time period where I was struggling with, 'Should I stay here in the city and keep pursuing this dream or should I maybe go back home and try to look for something a little more 9 to 5,'" he said. "When I heard this song, it was definitely something that I felt like for the first time that I could close my eyes and sing.  I think as an entertainer that's the number one thing we try to do is to move somebody with both the emotion behind the melody and also the emotion behind the lyric."