The best music is about connection, that place where words and music allow an artist's reality to fire real emotion in listeners. And it's just that connection that has been at the heart of Frankie Ballard's rise as an artist.

"I see people relating to the words of these songs," he says, "using the lyrics to reflect on their own lives."

Nowhere has that been more evident than in Ballard's breakthrough #1 hit, "Helluva Life." Fans are owning every line as they sing it back in concert and use social media to share their own stories of good times and bad, and the way romance puts a shine on all of it. As they sometimes do, the song's maxim that "bad times make the good times better" has become a rallying cry and a life-affirming motto.
It also rings true to the life Ballard himself has been living.