Stevenson Scott Enters the Contemporary Country Ranking with Exit 89
6 min read
Stevenson Scott Enters the Contemporary Country Ranking with Exit 89
An American Country Singer-Songwriter Takes His Hometown Song to the Top of His Spotify Page
Exit 89 enters the BestMusic.News Country, Country Pop and Americana ranking at number five, between Kelsea Ballerini’s Peter Pan and Howard Gripp’s I’m Not My Yesterday. Stevenson Scott, a country singer-songwriter from Saint Johns, Florida, in the United States, released the single on 2 October 2026. It is his seventh single of the year, and a song about the Michigan town he grew up in.
Stevenson Scott’s Exit 89 is number five in our Country, Country Pop, Americana playlist below, and his full run of coverage sits on Stevenson Scott’s artist profile. The single came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Hear it in the list first, then read on for who it is reaching.
Exit 89 by Stevenson Scott Is for Listeners Who Left a Small Town but Kept It
The title points to a real exit. On Interstate 75 in Michigan, Exit 89 is the Sashabaw Road exit in Independence Township, the township that surrounds Clarkston, the hometown the song is about. In fact, Clarkston is the smallest city by land area in the state, with 928 residents at the 2020 census. Stevenson Scott also filmed the video for the single there, on location, as a DIY project made for fun.
So the first audience is easy to name. It is anyone who still knows the exit for a town they left. Scott fits that description himself, because he was born in Atlanta and moved to Michigan at 11. He picked up a guitar there, and today he lives in Florida. On his Spotify page he has pinned Exit 89 as his artist pick, with a caption calling it the place he calls home.
The second audience is musical. This is contemporary country with a full band behind it, so it suits listeners who like modern Nashville production around a plain story. Finally, the third is age. At 54, Scott writes from decades of work, marriage and fatherhood, a view that rarely leads a new release in this genre.
Early Response Puts Exit 89 First on Stevenson Scott’s Spotify Page
The early figures point one way. Exit 89 now sits first in the Popular list on his Spotify page, with 21,967 plays in its first five weeks. It sits above four earlier singles, two of which have passed 70,000 plays each, so the newest song already leads his catalogue there.
Meanwhile, his monthly audience stands at 15,626 listeners. That tally is still much larger than his social following. He has 1,235 followers on Instagram, 232 on Facebook, 94 on TikTok and 115 subscribers on YouTube. That suggests most of his listeners find the songs on Spotify rather than through his social feeds.
The release run continues after it. A Christmas release comes next, and an album is planned for January 2027.
The Community Around Exit 89 Runs From Stevenson Scott’s Studio Band to His Acoustic Covers
Then there are the people inside the record. Stevenson Scott, credited as Scott Stevenson Davis, wrote the song, and John Kennedy produced it. Andy Ellison plays acoustic and steel guitar, and Aaron Currie plays electric guitar. William Moore is on bass, Stephen Mullins on keys and Grady Saxman on drums, while Audioworx Productions mastered the track. The steel guitar is the clearest country marker in that line-up, and it sits next to a full rhythm section.
But the community around the song goes back further than this release. In 1995 Scott won Best Country Vocalist and Musician honours at the Detroit Music Awards. A year later he moved to Nashville to write full-time. Family life then took him to Jacksonville, Florida, and the music carried on from a home studio in the state.
On YouTube he keeps that older audience close with acoustic covers of country standards. Recent ones include Eddie Rabbitt’s I Love a Rainy Night and Johnny Lee’s Lookin’ for Love. They speak to listeners who grew up with that era of country radio, the same listeners a hometown song is written for.
Miranda Lambert, Bob Seger and the Song About Going Home
Country has a famous version of this return. Miranda Lambert released The House That Built Me, written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin, in March 2010. Its narrator goes back as an adult to the house she grew up in. The song is driven mainly by acoustic guitar with steel guitar fills, and it became her first number one on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, holding the top spot for four weeks. Exit 89 uses the same instruments for a similar trip, but Scott wrote his own.
Michigan has its own hometown classic. Bob Seger wrote Mainstreet, released in April 1977 from Night Moves, about Ann Street, just off Main Street in Ann Arbor, where he grew up. It peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number one in Canada. Listeners raised on Michigan rock radio will hear the same pull towards a few streets that shaped a life.
Find Exit 89 at number five on our list, then take the exit Stevenson Scott still calls home.
From the BestMusic.News curator team: “We placed Exit 89 fifth on our country list, right after Kelsea Ballerini. It is a hometown song with a full band behind it, and it holds its own in that company.”
Stream Exit 89 and Follow Stevenson Scott on Apple Music, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok
Stream Exit 89 on your preferred platform. Then follow Stevenson Scott on Apple Music, Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, or visit his official website.
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