Catch of the Day – William Michael Morgan – “Missing” [AUDIO]

Today we turn our spotlight on an artist who knew before he made to high school what path he wanted to travel down. An artist who hit the top of the country charts with his debut single, a trip to the top that took a record setting 59 weeks. What a long, strange trip it was.

Growing up in Vicksburg, Mississippi, William Michael Morgan started taking music seriously around the age of 11, playing with musicians more than twice his age. By age 13 he had his first guitar and his path was pretty clear to him. His family was supportive of his talent, driving him to perform in clubs and honky-tonks he was far too young to be in. His father managed his social media (MySpace). Eventually he came to the attention of Nashville record executives. By the time he was 18, Morgan had signed a publishing deal with Warner Bros.

He spent his early time in Nashville working on his songwriting skills, working with some of the best songwriters in Nashville. He also worked on his live shows, taking inspiration from acts like George Strait, Keith Whitley and Mark Chesnutt. In 2015, Warner Bros. felt he was ready and signed him to their Nashville label. Morgan released his debut single "I Met A Girl" on August 24, 2015, knowing that there was a lot on the line. He was in the beginning stages of putting together his debut album, and knew that the future of that album rested on the success of the single. Also riding on the success of the single was the reputation of one of the single's songwriter's, Sam Hunt, who had included his own version of the tune on his debut album Montevallo, but did not see his recording being released as a single.

The single, which to date has sold over 200,000 copies began to climb the Billboard Country chart. It seemed to be added to a steady 5 radio stations across the nation every week. By January 1st the single was still to break the top-30; it wasn't until the week of May 7th that the single jumped from #32 to #29, but then it spent the next four weeks bouncing between that slot and #28. The song then began to slowly climb again, and by the week of August 6th, it was at #20. The week of September 17th what  may have been the single's biggest single week gain, as it climbed from #13 and made Morgan's first top-10 appearance, landing at #7. The song then stalled at #7 for three weeks, climbing to #3 for the week of October 8th, and finally, completing an exhausting 59 week climb, 52 of them on the chart, by hitting #1 on October 15th, where it spent one week.

In the time that it took Morgan to climb to the top, 19 different artists released 31 #1 hits, including 3 each from Florida-Georgia Line & Thomas Rhett. Also during this time, Morgan's debut album, Vinyl, was released on Sept. 30th. Morgan proved that slow and steady win the race, but with the second release from the album, he is hoping for a more direct route to the top of the chart; that single is in our spotlight today. William Michael Morgan and "Missing" is today's Catch of the Day, new music you haven't heard, but you'll want to hear it again.