"Heavy Is the Head" is a song recorded by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

group

Zac Brown Band Zac Brown Band is an American country music band based in Atlanta, Georgia. The lineup consists of Zac Brown (lead vocals, guitar), Jimmy De Martini ( fiddle, vocals), John Driskell Hopkins (bass guitar, guitar, baritone guitar, banjo, ukul ...

. It was released on March 6, 2015 as the second single from the band's fourth studio album, ''

Jekyll + Hyde ''Jekyll + Hyde'' is the fourth major-label studio album by the Zac Brown Band. It was released on April 28, 2015. The album's lead single, " Homegrown", was released on January 12, 2015. " Heavy Is the Head", featuring Chris Cornell, was release ...

'', released on April 28, 2015. It features vocals from

Chris Cornell Christopher John Cornell (né Boyle; July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017) was an American singer and musician best known as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and primary lyricist and songwriter for the rock bands Soundgarden and Audioslave ...

, and was released to rock radio, rather than country. The song was used as the theme for the

2015 Major League Baseball season The 2015 Major League Baseball season began on April 5 with a Sunday night game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, and ended on November 1 with the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series. This was Rob Ma ...

and has also appeared in the video game ''

WWE 2K16 ''WWE 2K16'' is a professional wrestling video game developed by Yuke's and published by 2K Sports for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It is the sequel to ''WWE 2K15'', and was succeeded by ''WWE 2K17''. ...

''.

Personnel

Compiled from liner notes. * Zac Brown – lead vocals,

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

– duet vocals * Coy Bowles – slide guitar *

Clay Cook Douglas "Clay" Cook (born April 20, 1978) is an American songwriter, producer, and musician who is best known as a member of the Zac Brown Band. After dropping out of college, he and classmate John Mayer formed the band Lo-Fi Masters. Cook co-wro ...

– Hammond organ * Donald Dunlavey – electric guitar * Chris Fryar – drums *

John Driskell Hopkins John Driskell Hopkins (born May 3, 1971) is best known for his role as a founding member, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter for the Grammy Award winning group Zac Brown Band. Hopkins co-wrote, with Zac Brown, Wyatt Durette, and Shawn ...

– electric guitar * Matt Mangano –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, electric guitar *

Daniel de los Reyes Daniel de los Reyes (born July 18, 1962) is an American percussionist who is a former member of Earth, Wind & Fire and Chicago. He is currently a member of the Zac Brown Band. Musical career De los Reyes was born in New York City and raised ...

–

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

* Jimmy De Martini –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

* Darrell Scott – background vocals, electric guitar, pedal steel guitar

Chart performance

"Heavy Is the Head" debuted at number 50 on the '' Billboard''

Rock Airplay The ''Billboard'' charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in ''Billboard'' magazine. ''Billboard'' biz, the online extension of the ''Billboard'' charts, pr ...

chart and at number 37 on the

Mainstream Rock Mainstream rock (also known as heritage rock) is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada. Format background Mainstream rock stations represent the middle ground between classic rock and active rock ...

airplay chart for the week ending March 21, 2015. The song is the band's first entry on either chart. Its number one peak on the Mainstream Rock airplay chart has made Zac Brown Band only the second musical act after Bon Jovi to have a number one single on both that chart and the Country Airplay chart.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

2015 songs 2015 singles Chris Cornell songs Zac Brown Band songs Big Machine Records singles Republic Records singles Songs written by Darrell Scott Songs written by John Driskell Hopkins Songs written by Zac Brown Songs written by Wyatt Durrette (songwriter) Vocal collaborations {{2010s-rock-song-stub