Rappaport To The Rescue

Country music star and Season 7 winner of NBC’s The Voice Craig Wayne Boyd joins Jill Rappaport for a soulful conversation about his journey to winning the competition on Blake Shelton’s team, his new album Tidbits, his lifelong love of horses and the powerful connection between animals, music and mental health.

Craig opens up about arriving on The Voice after being beaten down by the music industry and how the experience became a healing journey that taught him to be vulnerable again. He shares why his biggest competition wasn't the other singers—it was overcoming his own doubts and focusing on what made him unique as an artist.

Craig also takes Jill inside Tidbits, his deeply personal album inspired by pivotal moments throughout his life, from falling in love and raising five children to lessons learned from his father and his Texas roots. He explains how those experiences became songs including “One Line Away,” “Someday,” “Blood, Sweat, and Beer” and “Gospel of the South.”

A lifelong horseman and ambassador for Horses for Mental Health, Craig shares how horses have been part of his life since childhood, why he used to escape on long trail rides after moving to Nashville and how he even wrote songs from the back of a horse. He also introduces Jill to Murphy, his family's recently rescued dog.

And in a special Rappaport to the Rescue moment, Craig grabs his guitar and gives Jill an impromptu performance of “Gospel of the South.”

Plus, cat correspondent Deborah Cribbs joins Jill for Cat Chat to discuss cats, mental health and why adopting an adult or senior cat can be especially meaningful.

It's a heartfelt mix of country music, The Voice, Blake Shelton, rescue animals and the healing power of horses—with an exclusive performance from Craig Wayne Boyd.

Listen to Episode #70 Now:

Transcript:

Hi, welcome to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm Jill Rappaport, and today we are going country with country music artist Craig Wayne Boyd. This guy has the most soulful voice and what powerful performances.

His new album is called Tidbits, and here's a few tidbits about Craig. He's the father of five children who love to sing too, and the family has taken the band on the road named Boyds R Us. He has one rescue dog, Murphy, and he loves animals, especially horses.

He grew up in Texas riding them since he was a little boy, and like myself, he's also an ambassador for Horses for Mental Health, which is the most wonderful organization. I'd like to note that this year alone, Horses for Mental Health has raised over $1.4 million for non-profits around the incorporating horses into their mental health programs, and I know this is something very near and dear to Craig's heart, so when we come back, we're going to meet and hopefully hear a little singing from country crooner Craig Wayne Boyd. Stay tuned.

Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue. I'm Jill Rappaport, and so excited to introduce you to our very special guest, country music artist known for his soulful voice and powerful performances, winner of Season 7 of NBC's The Voice with Blake Shelton's team, and he is so amazing, and so sorry you can't see him because he's awfully cute. Ladies and gentlemen, Craig Wayne Boyd.

Craig, so great to have you here. Wow, what a build-up, and you're making me blush already. Well, listen, love your voice and love the way you look, and I'm so excited that you're here today because we have so much in common.

Not only do we love great music and you make it, but you are such a huge animal advocate, especially when it comes to horses, and you're involved with the Horses for Mental Health campaign. I got involved with them from the very beginning, and we know firsthand what these steeds in need do for us and our souls, don't they? Absolutely. I grew up with horses myself as a young kid.

I remember getting buck my little Shetland pony, Coco, many a time. He was more stubborn than I was, I believe, but maybe not because we kept getting on back on him. Then throughout the years, when I first moved out to Nashville, I brought out horses with me.

I had a property on the outskirts of town, and I had my horses out there. It was just to get away from everyone else, I'd hop on the horse and go off trail riding for hours on end. I actually wrote a lot of songs on the back of a horse.

Oh, wow. Well, if you say that, you're going to tempt me. I'm going to get a little sample of something.

Anything you want to share and sing with us now, I want to hear something about a horse. I would love it. Oh my goodness.

I wasn't prepared for that. I don't even have my... I have a guitar on the wall behind me, but it's probably not in tune at the moment. It is something that I got involved with Chantal's company.

She was putting on a songwriter night. You're talking about Chantal Klinger, our mutual pal who I first met when I was on Oprah, and she was my producer. She introduced both of us to this incredible horse campaign.

Absolutely. I found out that they were dealing with the horses and stuff. It was such a beautiful experience that I had there that I wanted to be more involved.

Hopefully, we'll get to actually go out and experience the horseback riding with the folks that she's helping. Hopefully, we can get you to sing one of those songs. People would love that because they campaign Horses for Mental Health, which goes all year long.

It starts out, kicks off as Seeing Through Horses, and then continues on. I know what my horses have done for me therapeutically, emotionally, physically. They just really soothe our souls.

It's just a great experience. My dad has all his horses. It's fun.

I think we shared some of the pictures with you guys of the kiddos are now getting... I have five. I had to move the horses back out to Texas because having five children and being in a smaller area, it was harder for me to get out to take care of them. We moved them back to Texas with my dad at my dad's ranch.

The kids get to go out there and hang out with them. It's so much fun. Let me understand the menagerie.

You're the dad to five wonderful children. How many animals in the household now are surrounding you at all times? I have my aquarium. I have five children.

Then we just recently in January rescued... He's a doodle. He is a Brittany doodle or a Brittany poo, I guess is what they call him. The family that had him was not able to... were going through a bad split up and they didn't feel comfortable in keeping the dog.

He has joined our family and he's going for his first haircut tomorrow. I'm excited. I love it.

I just went through that. I rescued a Labradoodle. I said, I have my own new breed of doodle.

She's a Whackadoodle. She is really out there. I call her Whitney the Poodle.

We gave her... Now it's her second big haircut. Oh my goodness. She had really never knew love or affection or attention.

Nobody's hands were on her in a kind way. She was in a hoarding situation. For her first haircut, she said, what the heck is going on here? She was really frightened.

We had to shave her down. It was quite the experience because I know the dogs I rescue. I just rescued a 14 plus blind, deaf little Doxy with many, many issues.

He's the most amazing dog in the world. Many of these rescue dogs, as I'm sure you know, they haven't known the love and compassion of a kind human being. That is true.

There's a lot of people out there like that. I experienced that nightly playing shows. It's not only do horses and animals themselves heal people, but music heals people.

That's also a very big part of my journey and what I feel like I was put on earth to do. Well, your voice is incredible. Listening to your music, you just go into a trance.

It's absolutely beautiful. To come in and do what you did on The Voice, on Blake Shelton's team, wow. Let's talk about the competition because I've interviewed over the years because country music is my favorite, I have to tell you.

I'm from Motown, by the way. I love Motown music too, but I absolutely adore country music. Talk about the competition and trying to really make your mark in today's world.

When you watch these shows, there is so much darn talent out there. There really is. In fact, stepping into the program myself, I didn't know where I was sitting at.

I showed up there pretty beat up. The industry had chewed me up and spit me out a couple of times there in a row. I didn't know up from down at that point.

Interestingly enough, it was a healing process for me to allow myself to learn to be vulnerable again. I walked in there and I knew that I had one opportunity to be on the show and that was it. I could go in there jaded, which I had been, and think that, hey, I've been through this, I've done this, I've done that, but I really walked in there with a humble attitude and a humble spirit and was there to learn.

I believe that that is what got me through. Wow. To do as well as you did, that says everything about you and your talent, because look at what's on the stage.

Any given night on these shows, you think, wow, there's so much talent out there. The competition is truly daunting and unbelievable. For me, the competition wasn't really with the other folks.

It was more with myself and my own mind. It was whether I could go out and just focus on doing my best and not... Because everyone is different. Every artist is different.

One guy may be able to do some crazy vocal licks and sing through the raptors. Somebody may be able to hold a note forever. Other people have inflections in their voices that bring out passion.

I just focused on what was my forte and then let the cards fall like they may. What do you think it is about your forte that sets you apart? I learned at a young age that I had the ability to draw people in with my voice. I think I really focused on that and being relatable, being able to tell a story.

There's different people. I mean, I'm also a songwriter, so I write a lot of songs, but I've always looked at myself more as an interpreter of music to be able to convey the story as it was written or at least my interpretation thereof. It seems today you really do have to be a triple threat.

You not only have to be a great singer, you have to be a great songwriter, and you have to be a great guitar player. Literally, you have to do it all to really make your mark. Yeah, and then it's funny.

A lot of you even now is becoming even... You look like you sound good if you know what I'm saying. Well, you have such a great voice. For you, what do you strive for? We're going to talk about your new album, Tidbits, in a moment, but what is it? How do you set goals for yourself and say, okay, that was a good song, but next time I can do better? You're only as good as your last song, so where do you go from here and what sort of goals do you keep setting for yourself to set you apart? For me, I just want to continue to progress.

I feel like you just mentioned my newest album, Tidbits. The word tidbits is different or strange, I guess, in and of itself, but it came from a gentleman that I met when I was... Well, evidently, he knew me most of my life, but I didn't really get to know him very well until I was around 15 or 16 years old. He gave me my first job at a music store, incidentally, and my parents were going through a divorce.

I was trying to figure out life. You're becoming a young man and life is weird, especially when you don't have your dad around as much as maybe you would like. He said, Craig, life is just a bunch of tidbits.

It's what you do with them that matters. You can use them as stepping stones or you can use them as stumbling blocks. It's up to you to make that decision.

To me, Tidbits, I looked it up and it is a snippet of good or positive news. This album is those stories. It's the songs that I wrote about those moments in my life that have been instrumental or impactful is probably the word that I could use.

One of the songs, One Line Away, is about the moment right before I asked my wife to marry me and knowing that you're just one line away from making her yours forever. Then I have a song on there called Someday and it's the advice to my kids about not trying to grow up too fast. Someday it will be here before you know it.

There's another one, incidentally, even though my father, we were kind of estranged there for a short time. He's also one of the hardest working guys that I know. I have a song on there called Blood, Sweat, and Beer.

It sounds like it's a party song, but if you listen to the lyrics of it, the first verse is like, I was raised by the callous hands of a working man and that's why I am the way I am. The way I am has never done me wrong. It's really about the hard work.

You can play hard, but you probably need to work harder. My favorite song on the album, I know I'm just kind of doing a rundown of the song, explaining why it's tidbits. One of the songs is called Gospel of the South and I wrote that, incidentally, kind of like you're doing right now, traveling.

I was driving down the road and I was flipping through radio stations and I had a little Chevy pickup truck that only had an AM radio in it. That's about all I had. I come across a radio preacher and I stayed on the channel for a bit.

It really took me back to my roots of growing up and hearing that hellfire and brimstone preachers going on and how, even though it may not be something that I follow to a T anymore, but it is something that is foundational in every one of our lives, how we have those foundational roots of the Gospel of the South. Mills So every one of these songs are really pieces of your life and your heart. O'Reilly Absolutely.

Mills Well, that's what a successful song should be. Think about it. When it means so much to you because it's all about you, then you can sing it with the soulfulness and the intensity so people can really understand what it means to you.

O'Reilly I had spent a lot of time in my earlier career. I've been putting out albums of my own since the early 2000s. I've been a full-time musician since I was 19 years old, back in the... but I spent a lot of that time being the honky tonker, hanging from the rafters, being the guy that's the life of the party.

And I've found myself having five kids now that I really wanted to express more in depth of who I am as a person and explain that a little more through song. Mills And you're doing it. Now, you know, come on, you've teased us so much.

I don't want to put you on the spot. I'm just looking at that guitar right over your shoulder. What does it take, Craig, just to give us a little bit to sing us off with? O'Reilly I bet I can make that happen.

If you give me two seconds, I can make it happen. Mills Not too much pressure, huh? Take your time. Ladies and gentlemen, he's walking over to the guitar now.

Wait, I don't see him. Did he leave the interview? He probably said, exit stage left. We're waiting.

Maybe he's taking time to get another guitar. Hang on. The anticipation is killing me.

Mills There we go. Oh, grabbing it off the wall. You're my hero, Craig.

O'Reilly Here we go. I'll play the song I was just talking about, Gospel of the South for you. Mills Okay, perfect.

O'Reilly I was going home. I was going through Memphis. I heard a preacher do all the Pentecostal radio.

And he talked like the Bible. He talked like thunder. Then he talked to me like I'd lost my sight.

It's been years. It's been miles. I can feel it now.

He said it runs through me like the Mississippi. And it turns me like a weathered fan. And it walks me down like gravel to a field of Celtic songs of hope my family's land.

There's a song of sweet meat and fennel. I can hear it now. It's the Gospel of the South.

I remember a poor man in an old farmhouse. A rusted fort out in the backyard. And I'd ask my grandpa, how come it never rains? How come this morale is so dang high? He said, boy, it's the good Lord's will.

Then he bought his drum. Yeah, it runs through me like the Mississippi. And it turns me like a weathered fan.

And it points me down like gravel to a field of Celtic songs of hope my family's land. And there's a song of sweet cabbage. I can hear it now.

It's the Gospel of the South. That house is gone. And I see a young bullet in a shirt and tie dressed up for revival.

The back of my dad has a truck full of empty beer cans. But in my mama's hand, a beat-up Bible, they put me down. That muddy water, I can chase it in my mouth.

Yeah, it runs through me like the Mississippi. And it turns me like a weathered rain. And it points me down that gravel road where I left my sins in a shallow grave.

And there's a song of sweet cabbage. And I can feel it now. It's the Gospel of the South.

Amazing grace, how I love the South. Wow, I can't believe I got a one-on-one concert, Craig. That was incredible.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Thank you so much.

That song was just amazing. And for everybody out there listening, go run and get tidbits right away. What an incredible voice you have.

I feel so honored to get a firsthand song right from you, Craig, and continue your work for all our animals in need, especially the horses that need you so much. Absolutely. I can't wait to, I think next week I get to get out and go riding again.

So it's going to be a blast. Oh, I can't wait to hear all about that. We're going to catch up with you again.

Craig, thank you for everything. And we hope you enjoyed that free, amazing concert from Craig, because you'll never get it anywhere else, but on Rappaport to the Rescue. Now hold your horses, because we have more as we check in with our cat correspondent, Deborah Cribbs, when we come back.

Welcome back to Rappaport to the Rescue. It's that time of the show again. We're going to do five minutes of cat chat with my favorite cat correspondent, Deborah Cribbs.

Deborah, great to see you and wonderful to check in. What's happening in the cat world, Deborah? I am so happy to be here to talk about cats with you today. And you know what? November is Mental Health Awareness Month.

So let's talk about animals, in my case cats, and mental health. Yes. And you were saying in the past, when I've interviewed you, how therapeutic cats can be, especially now.

Right, Deborah? Absolutely. You know, it's really interesting. I've read a lot of statistics and the ones that I find the most compelling.

Did you know, Jill, that if you have a cat in your home, you are actually 30% less likely to die from a heart attack? Who knew? Even though I'm allergic, I'm going to go rescue a cat. And I've also learned that, I mean, this is kind of intuitive. If you're petting a cat, your serotonin and dopamine levels go up and your heart rate goes down.

That produces a super happy human. I love that one. Right.

Your blood pressure can actually go down just by stroking. Absolutely. The wonderful, soft kitten or cat next to you.

And let's talk about the holidays. You know, coming up, we've got Thanksgiving and then, of course, Christmas and New Year's. This is a time where we're all in the mood to give.

But how do you feel, Deborah, about getting a kitten or a cat, hopefully a cat, because you know me, I'm all about the seniors, during holiday time? Well, I would say that the holiday times tend to be a lonely time for some people. And I understand that anxiety levels, because of all the pressure of the holidays, rise. So, since cats are so helpful to helping humans lower their stress level, and cats are really good companions, believe it or not, cats are great company for humans.

So, to alleviate that loneliness, maybe an anxiety, it's a great time to give a cat to yourself. Bring a cat into your home. And, oh my gosh, I have another statistic I was just reading about.

This is a good one. A cat purrs at a frequency that actually helps tissue regeneration in pets and humans and helps lower inflammation. Who amongst us doesn't have inflammation? Cats sit on your lap and purr and actually help our human bodies.

See, and all of us immediately run to doctors. They're loading us up with drugs that hurt us. And meanwhile, there's all these animals waiting, all these cats and kittens and shelters, and they could be doing such therapeutic, physical, wonderful things for us.

Absolutely. And I will say right now, there are literally a million cats in shelters, down the street from everyone who need a home. So, if humans are made better by having cats in their home, why not? It helps everybody.

Well, and your organization and what you do with Give Them 10, every day you are out there promoting the need to save these wonderful animals, Debra. You're truly a hero to cats. And I love that you always seem to be promoting the cats and less on the kittens, because you understand the need to take the older ones, don't you? Older ones are harder to adopt from a shelter.

I will say kittens are a little easier, but you know the challenge with kittens, Jill? They come kind of at the same time of year. We call it kitten season. So, the challenge with kittens is shelters, when it's summer, shelters are inundated with kittens.

So, that's when you're going to hear me talk about kittens. But it is absolutely true. If you will adopt a bonded pair or an adult cat, that is much harder for the shelter to get out the door.

So, yes, much more helpful to the shelter. And what a great message to end on. Once again, great cat chat, Deborah Cribbs, and can't wait to hear and see you next month.

See you next month, Jill. Cat Correspondent signing off. And thank you all for listening to this wonderful edition of, if I do say so myself, Rappaport to the Rescue.

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