Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Former Voice contestant Cody Belew is preparing to release a new album called “The Wreck” later this year and dropped the latest track Friday.

It’s a touching tune called “Rodeo,” and it’s about a relationship that’s a lot like a rodeo ride for the guy involved.

Cody wrote the song with Autumn McEntire and shares the story behind it on Instagram.

He says he was in a writing session as ASCAP and “up on this chalkboard, someone had written rodeo and Juliet and had put a heart around it.”

That provided the spark for the writing session that followed, and the song came rather naturally given the writer’s backgrounds.

Cody said his dad was a bull rider and his family went to rodeos growing up; Autumn’s family is from Oklahoma and “grew up in the rodeo.”

“We wrote it mostly in one session, but came back a second time and really dug in to make sure we had it exactly right. And boy, did we. It ended up being the song that introduces the entire album.”

“Rodeo” follows “Crimes” and “The Choice (a Lonely Heart Makes),” the first two tracks released from the album earlier this year.

Cody is classifying his new releases as Americana. In fact, he’ll be a showcasing artist at this year’s Americanafest, set for Sept. 10-15 in Nashville.

He was more of a pop artist when he made it all the way to the Top 8 on Season 3 of The Voice.

Here’s a snippet of “Rodeo.”