“Country State of Mind” becomes, for Josh Turner and Chris Janson, a friendly manifesto: a reminder that real country isn’t a trend—it’s a place you carry inside you.
When Josh Turner invites Chris Janson to join him on “Country State of Mind”, the moment lands less like a “collab” and more like two working country men leaning on the same old bar rail, grinning at the same truth. This version was released in the lead-up to Turner’s covers-and-duets album Country State of Mind—an MCA Nashville project that arrived on August 21, 2020 and was built entirely from classics Turner grew up admiring.
If you’re looking for a clean “debut position” on a major Billboard singles chart at release, here’s the accurate, slightly unglamorous reality: Turner’s “Country State of Mind (feat. Chris Janson)” circulated as a pre-album release track (notably dated June 17, 2020 on retail/streaming listings) rather than as a conventional radio single with an identifiable Hot Country Songs debut week. In other words, it arrived the modern way—out in the world quickly, ready for playlists and fans—while the album carried the broader commercial footprint and headline story.
And the album did make that footprint. Country State of Mind was conceived as Turner’s personal “Mount Rushmore” salute to country’s architects—Randy Travis, John Anderson, Johnny Cash, Vern Gosdin, Hank Williams, and more—an affectionate act of preservation in a time when traditional sounds often feel like they’re fighting for room on the dial. In that frame, the title track isn’t just another cut. It’s the album’s thesis.
The backstory that makes this duet feel genuine is simple and charming: Turner and Janson had performed the song together impromptu on a radio show in Augusta, Georgia, a few years earlier, and the chemistry stuck with Turner enough that he brought Janson into the studio later. That detail matters because you can hear it—this doesn’t sound like two vocals stitched together by schedule. It sounds like two guys who already know where the punchlines land.
Of course, the song itself has a proud lineage. “Country State of Mind” was written by Hank Williams Jr. and Roger Alan Wade, released by Hank Jr. in June 1986 as the lead single from Montana Café, and it famously peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s country chart. Hank Jr.’s original is equal parts shrug and statement—an outlaw-leaning refusal to be judged by city manners or industry expectations. It’s a song that treats “country” not as geography, but as temperament.
Turner and Janson keep that temperament, but their version shifts the emotional color slightly. Turner’s voice—still one of Nashville’s most unmistakable low baritones—brings a steady, hospitable warmth, like the door’s already open and there’s coffee on. Janson, with his brighter rasp and grin-in-the-throat delivery, brings the rowdier side of the room: the laughter, the little wink that says, we know exactly who we are. Together, they make the song feel less combative than Hank Jr.’s swagger and more communal—like an invitation to sit down rather than a warning to stay out.
The meaning, in 2020, lands with extra resonance. “Country State of Mind” isn’t really about drinking or good-ol’-boy caricature; it’s about belonging—the kind that comes from tradition, from familiar sounds, from values that don’t need to be reinvented every season to stay true. And that’s precisely why Turner placed it as the title track on an album of covers: he wasn’t chasing novelty, he was naming a home base.
In the end, “Country State of Mind” (feat. Chris Janson) works because it doesn’t pretend country is something you can purchase, costume, or hashtag into existence. It suggests something older and steadier: that country is a way of moving through the world—unfussy, loyal to the song, loyal to the feeling. And when Josh Turner and Chris Janson sing it together, it feels less like they’re trying to convince you… and more like they’re simply telling you where they live.
