Scotty McCreery is on the beach, and No. 1 again

Garner’s Scotty McCreery, who topped the country singles chart for the first time this year, has another No. 1 hit to his credit — on the Beach Music Top 40.

The 2011 “American Idol” winner’s “Barefootin’,” which appears on his current album, “Seasons Change,” turned the trick even though it’s not been released as a single. But the song has picked up enough spins from reporting Association of Carolina Shag Clubs venues and deejays across the Mid-Atlantic to hit the top.

It’s a song McCreery actually co-wrote three years ago, after telling co-writer David Lee Murphy that he wanted to do a song in the supper-club-soul style of beach, complete with optimal shag tempo and horns.

“Outside of North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, people do not know about beach music,” McCreery said in a News & Observer interview earlier this year. “I’m excited to maybe put beach music on more of a national scale because it’s such a regional thing.”

“Barefootin’” will probably be in the setlist the next time McCreery performs a hometown show, Jan. 19 at the Ritz in Raleigh. But that actually won’t be his first time doing beach music on a stage.

“I used to see Band of Oz playing down at the beach,” McCreery said. “I even sang with them at Topsail Beach one night. I was in the crowd and one of their daughters brought me up. I think we did their version of ‘Wagon Wheel.’”

McCreery has had a power 2018, including his June 16 wedding to high school sweetheart Gabi Dugal (footage from their wedding in the North Carolina mountains appears in his latest video, “This Is It”); his first No. 1 country single and third No. 1 country album; and a guest appearance on ABC’s relaunched version of “American Idol,” the show that broke him through to stardom seven years ago.

He even threw out the first pitch at a Durham Bulls game last month.

This story was originally published September 6, 2018 at 10:40 AM with the headline "Scotty McCreery is on the beach, and No. 1 again."