Some of country music’s biggest stars shared their favorite memories from the Fourth of July. And wouldn’t you know it, most of ’em involve fireworks.
Check out what Luke Bryan, Sam Hunt, Eric Church, Darius Rucker and more had to say about their fond Fourth flashbacks.
Luke Bryan
“Some of my favorite Fourth of July memories were spent on Lake Blackshear down in Georgia with my family. I was always kind of in charge of driving home from Tennessee and picking up all the fireworks and my nieces and nephews always got excited when I rolled in because they knew I had all the fireworks. But, it was always a great memory, and I miss not getting to do that as much as we used to.”
Sam Hunt
“I’m from Georgia, and most [fireworks] were illegal, I’m pretty sure, growing up. But over in Alabama, that’s where all the firework stands were, and we only had to drive 10, 15 minutes to get to the Alabama line, so we could go get a bundle of fireworks pretty easy. But [my granddad] would always take a lot of pride in going and finding all the good stuff and coming back with a big pile. He’d have his torch out there at the end of the driveway and we’d all eat homemade ice cream and put down towels on the driveway and he’d shoot off fireworks for 30, 45 minutes. Such a good time.”
Eric Church
“The Fourth of July for me, growing up we would always go to the lake, we didn’t live on the lake but we would all go to the lake. Had a buddy who had a pontoon and we would always get on the pontoon and you go out and you’d tie all the pontoons together and just have a big time. This was before, I was younger then, the adults were having more fun than we were, you know it was just to go swim in the water and shoot off fireworks. Basically, water tailgating is what it was. And then as we got older, same thing . . . we would just, us younger kids had our own boat and we had as much fun as the adults.”
Darius Rucker
“Oh, I love fireworks. We had the bottle-rocket fights and all that good stuff. I was the typical little crazy kid, you know. In South Carolina, it was always legal, so we shot fireworks when it was legal. We did all that sort of stuff. I almost blew my hand off once.”
Billy Currington
“My best memories would be hanging out with my mom, brother and sister on the beach on Tybee Island right off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. We’d go there every year and we’d light our own fireworks and watch the ones that they had for us. They were the best times, some of the best times of my life.”
Canaan Smith
“Williamsburg, Virginia, has a great fireworks display. It’s one of the best in the nation . . . We’d go to the Governor’s Palace. They have a big lawn, and we’d sit out there and lay a blanket down. This was before I was old enough to drink, but we probably tried to sneak some in anyhow. And we’d just watch the [show], you know they’d have the grand finale, which always blew my mind ’cause just when you thought it was over, they’d start bringing out all of the tricks and it just gets crazy. We did that on a regular basis. Other times, we’d do stuff in our own yard. We had a big yard when we were growing up with a dirt track in the back, and our neighbor’s yard was equally as big, so when you put ’em together, we had a massive area to be destructive and do whatever we wanted. So, we blew up all kinds of stuff.”
Easton Corbin
“Fourth of July, I remember growing up and having cookouts, and of course we did the whole fireworks thing. I remember my uncle, he’d always get fireworks and bring ’em down like from Alabama, because in Florida, you couldn’t get the bottle rockets and stuff, so he’d always go up to Alabama, ’cause they live in Tallahassee, which was close to the [state] line. So, he would go over the line and get the good fireworks and bring ’em down to my grandma’s for me and my cousin, and we’d just hang out all day and shoot off fireworks and clown around.”
Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum
“For many, many years in a row, we would be up at the lake for Fourth of July, and having those memories of being on the boat and going tubing and skiing and enjoying being out in the summertime, great weather on the water. But, then for me, Fourth of July was when [husband] Chris [Tyrell] proposed. So, I got proposed to on July 2 up at the lake, the same lake I grew up going to, and so that’s probably the biggest highlight of Fourth of July to me—getting a rock on my hand.”
Dave Haywood of Lady Antebellum
“July 4th is always, for me, my birthday week. My birthday is July 5, so we grew up going on family trips to the beach. We would d always go to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and always take trips for my birthday, so that’s always a fun time of the year . . . watch fireworks. I think my best memory would be my birthday party when I was 9 or 10 years old. We went to the batting cages and I remember I was swinging so hard, it was 100 degrees outside, I was swinging in the batting cage and ended up passing out right there in the batting cage. You’re trying so hard to hit the ball, you’re a kid and you really don’t realize how much water you should be drinking and I was that kid who was on the ground in the batting cage, people fanning and pouring water all over my face. Happy Birthday to me and America.”
