Kimberly Dunn’s smile and laugh are infectious. But that won’t get you too far as a musician. Good thing for her, so is her music. Last week the recent Texas A&M grad stopped by Radio Texas, LIVE! to hang out, sing and debut her new single “Common as the Rain” and that’s exactly what we did.

First things first though. Seeing how it was my first time to meet Ms. Dunn, I wanted to know if there was a nickname that perhaps her friends call her (as if Kimberly is so hard to say). Turns out there is and it’s, “Kimba” she says, “because I have gigantic hair when I don’t do it and it likes like a lion mane [Like Simba from Lion King].”

Kimberly was first heard on Texas radio singing backup vocals in Johnny Cooper’s “Moving On” And let me apologize now for calling it “I’m Moving On” a couple times in the interview — Johnny, just know Kimba NEVER corrected me, the entire time.

She told me that singing with Cooper on it was, “So much fun! I was number one flattered Johnny even asked me to sing on the song, and it being the single was just icing on the cake.”

Dunn graduated from Texas A&M last spring, but while she was there she won A&M’s battle of the bands. No small feat considering she was the only participant who didn’t even bring a band. I asked her what ever made her think she could win, considering such an obvious handicap.

I was just blinded by, I can do it, I can do it! [Really] I just wanted to see how far I could get… I actually met my management team there and from that one day I won battle of the bands everything just kind of blossomed from there… It’s very neat to look back on.

But really who could imagine her not winning, she’s got too much talent and charisma to lose. Hear our entire interview here.

In this segment we talk about her new single “Common as the Rain” a song that features Willy Braun from Reckless Kelly on harmonica and Drew Womack singing backup — and we debut it.

For your RTX-Extra how about an acoustic performance. Dunn sang her song “Randy Rogers” live for us. And heads up, don’t you dare say it was inspired by Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw,” I found out the hard way, “No it was not! I wrote it first,” said Dunn when I questioned her about it.

In actuality the inspiration for the song came from her time at A&M, love life and music. “I wrote it when I was in college… You know this song is the most honest representation of me and my college years and listening to country music and Texas country music. This song wraps my love life around my love for music.”

Press play to hear “Randy Rogers,” the song that name drops nearly as much as Bo Phillips’ “Red Dirt Girl,” another song that did NOT inspire this one.

Follow Kimberly Dunn on Twitter and Facebook to stay up to date with her music and new puppy, a Great Pyrenees named Jackson.

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