Renee Blair stopped by The Bobby Bones Show for the first time to share how she became a co-writer on “wait in the truck,” share how an accident caused her jaw to be wired shut and more!
Blair posted a video on her Instagram of her vision board for the year, on it she put things like making her Grand Ole Opry debut and being on The Bobby Bones Show. Bobby Bones saw the video, called her and asked her to come on the show. He liked it because if you tell people your goals, they are more likely to help you. Blair is from St. Louis and has an alter ego she calls Hill Betty, which was inspired from her song “Hillbillies & Betties.” After her wedding to songwriter Jordan Schmidt, they went to Florida on a mini honeymoon and let out a loud burp in front of her husband. She apologized and said it was her hillbilly showing and thought how “billys” can be girls and came up with “Hill Betties.” Her song “Hillbillies & Betties” she said was inspired by all the bachelorette parties that happen in downtown Nashville and for all the girls who want to have fun. Inside of every woman is a bad or wild girl that needs to be let lose sometimes and this song is for when those girls fall in love.
One of the songs she is co-writer on is Hardy and Lainey Wilson’s “wait in the truck.” Her husband also produced and co-wrote it and when he was writing it with Hardy, he wanted it to be a duet, so he called Blair, and she came to the studio, and started singing with him. During the bridge of the song, she came up with the idea to sing “have mercy” and Hardy liked it and stuck with it. He didn’t know at the time that she was the one who came up with it until her husband brought it up to him later. It became Blair’s first number one and helped open a lot of doors for her.
Blair has come a long way from a few years ago when there was a time, she thought she’d never sing again. She was in a bad car crash and had to have her jaw wired shut for 12 weeks. Usually, people would stop talking and let it heal, but she continued to sing and even posted a video of her singing Kanye West’s “Through the Wire” which he recorded with his jaw wired shut as well. She still has 8 pieces of glass in her face from the incident and shared that when it happened, she was so unrecognizable in the hospital that her mom walked right past her. A few months after that accident, she was on a boat and people told her she couldn’t live in fear forever, so she went tubbing. The person driving the boat went too fast and she ended up snapping her upper arm completely in half and now has a metal plate in her arm. The silver lining from these injuries was that it forced her to pick up instruments. When her jaw was wired shut, she learned to play the guitar, and when her arm snapped, she learned piano. She jokes that it was God’s way of telling her not to waste her life and learn the instruments. Blair and Schmidt had their first child together, a baby boy named Fisher, five months ago. She was in labor for over 30 hours and lost half of the blood in her body because of the number of contractions she was having back-to-back and it caused her uterus to shut down.
While in studio, Blair performed her song “Hillbillies & Betties” with her brother, Lenny, who also co-wrote the song and played guitar with her.
She is currently on her Hillbetty Tour until April. For more information visit Iamreneeblair.com.