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Chris Janson: Teaching Harmonica To Kids Changed His Whole View On Music

Chris Janson played the Nissan Stadium stage for the first time with his own set last night (6/9) at CMA Fest. Before he took the stage he talked about playing…

Chris Janson: Teaching Harmonica To Kids Changed His Whole View On Music
Jason Kempin/Getty Images

Chris Janson played the Nissan Stadium stage for the first time with his own set last night (6/9) at CMA Fest.

Before he took the stage he talked about playing CMA Fest for free which all artists do to raise money for music education. As Chris shared with us, he himself was once a music educator, "A lot of people don't know this about me but a long time ago before 'Buy Me A Boat' in the summertime for two summers I taught a thing called 'Kids on Stage' right outside of Franklin, Tennessee I taught harmonica classes. I got into it for extra money, but once I got into it it changed my life, it changed my whole view on music and I knew there was much of a purpose to why I was there."

He continued, "And I still to this very day will be around Franklin with my wife and I'll have kids who are now young adults come up to me going, 'Hey Mr. Janson what's up?' These were fifth and sixth graders and they were teaching me so much. If you really listen to kids they can teach you so much more than you can ever think about teaching them as an adult. It's pretty awesome."

-Nancy Brooks

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.