Jeff Dayton is the American Songwriter Sounds Like Summer Song Contest Promotion winner for his song "Chillo." American Songwriter caught up with Jeff to get the story behind his Summer hit.
I always loved the water and Caribbean, Latin, jazz and rock. In 2003 I got hired to play with Kenny Chesney and that gave me an extra push towards what we call Trop Rock, which has really given me a growing presence in that format. Of all the songs in my catalog to choose from, Chillo was the natural pick.
What was the inspiration behind your song, "Chillo"?
I do an Artist In Residence program called Making Music Nashville Style in elementary schools where I team up 5th graders into bands and show them our 'word for a third' way of writing. We start with the title and I tell them to bring ideas to support it. I was talking to one of the schools two years ago and I accidentally mashed up 'chill' and 'mellow' and it came out Chillo. The kids said, "hey, can we write that title?" We had a blast gathering ideas and I put the song together with them in about 45 minutes. Nothing beats the creativity of kids!
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