* En anglais uniquement
Although he became known in the mid-2010s as one of Nashville's most in-demand hitmakers, singer/songwriter
Ross Copperman first enjoyed a successful career as a major-label rock act in England. His 2007 album, Welcome to Reality, enjoyed some time on the U.K. pop charts, but he soon moved back to the U.S. and began his triumphant second act writing chart-topping hits for country acts like
Luke Bryan ("Strip It Down"),
Keith Urban ("John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16"), and
Brett Eldredge ("Wanna Be That Song"), and working as a producer. In addition to his success as a songwriter and collaborator, he has continued to record his own music and returned in 2019 with several new singles, followed by a pair of holiday songs in 2021.
A native of Roanoke, Virginia,
Copperman played piano as a child, but began taking songwriting more seriously after he took a songwriting class at James Madison University in his college years. Arriving during the singer/songwriter boom of the early 2000s, he self-released his debut album, Believe, in 2004. A winning mix of hooky indie pop and melodic rock, it helped him net a major-label deal with Sony in the U.K. After moving to London for a few years, he released the more polished but similarly charming Welcome to Reality in 2007 and made a strong showing on the U.K. charts. Despite his success in England, he decided to move back to the States and give Nashville a go. Although he continued to occasionally release his own music,
Copperman had tired of touring and shifted his focus to country songwriting and production. Already linked to an overseas publishing deal with
EMI, he connected with their Nashville office and started to land a handful of cuts and co-writes.
His first charting co-write was a single called "Glass" for the duo
Thompson Square, which reached number 15 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in 2012. Before the year was out, he'd notched another hit, this time with
Dierks Bentley's "Tip It on Back." Cuts for
Kenny Chesney,
Trisha Yearwood, and
Florida Georgia Line followed as
Copperman's star continued to rise. Meanwhile, he continued releasing his own music, turning out a pair of independent albums in 2012. Over the next few years, however, his reputation as an ace industry hitmaker was sealed with chart-topping singles for
Billy Currington ("Don't It"),
A Thousand Horses ("Smoke"), and a trio of hits for
Brett Eldredge, whose 2015 album
Illinois Copperman co-wrote and produced. 2016 brought a pair of Songwriter of the Year awards from the Academy of Country Music and BMI, along with more big hits like
Jake Owen's "American Country Love Song" and
Keith Urban's "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16." He continued to produce, working on albums for
Darius Rucker,
Brett Eldredge, and CCM artist
Chris Tomlin, and won a 2017 GMA Dove Award for his work with the latter. The following year,
Copperman co-wrote nearly half of
Dierks Bentley's album
The Mountain, as well as a single for
Kenny Chesney and
Eli Young Band. In 2019, he returned to his own work, releasing a trio of solo folk-pop singles, "All We Have Is Now," "We Should Plant a Tree," and "Stars Are on Your Side." In 2021
Copperman released the seasonal singles "Christmas Day" and "New Year." ~ Timothy Monger