 Carolyn Dawn Johnson has never doubted the power of music. "I remember asking my mother when I was young how anyone could live without music," recalls the Canadian-born singer-songwriter. "Music made me happy, made me cry; it soothed me. It did then and it does now. Music still takes me to places nothing else can." It is this perspective on music, combined with Carolyn's exposed lyrical candor and crystal vocal brilliance, that provide the soul and passion behind Room With A View, her debut album on Arista Nashville. Carolyn's career is not only a testament to the power music has had upon her, but it is also a personal assertion of what goal setting and remaining true to one's self can bring about. Raised on a farm in Deadwood, Alberta, Carolyn's dreams of music continually colored her emotional landscape. She was surrounded by music from a young age ? listening to her parents' Jim Reeves and Don Williams' records; singing at church functions and school plays, playing piano and continually singing around the house. As she got older, Carolyn found herself drawn to a wide range of artists from Charley Pride and Marty Stuart to Fleetwood Mac, Jann Arden, Abba and Matraca Berg. She would write songs, make her own recordings at home and attend every concert she could. In college she studied non-music courses, but continued to sit-in with hometown bands at night. Finally, the encouragement from local musicians began to make her think, "Maybe I can really do this. Maybe I am good enough." When she was 20, her "maybe" turned into the first tentative steps toward the musical career she'd dreamed of - but had always feared was out of reach. "I began to see the merit in positive thinking and I did a lot of goal-setting," she says. "I'd ask myself, ?what are the little steps that can get me where I want to go?' and then I'd try to do something every single day to achieve a step or two. I'd write things down and make them come true." Carolyn Dawn Johnson's incredible work ethic, coupled with natural talent has carried her in a few short years to places she only dared to dream about as a young girl. The release of her first album to the U.S. caps a year in which her success as a songwriter merited a number one hit ("Single White Female" for Chely Wright), an upcoming single for JoDee Messina ("Down Time") and the highly-coveted Music Row magazine's "Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year" award for 2000. Just six months after the Canadian release of Room With A View, she is celebrating two number one singles & videos in Canada for "Georgia" and "Complicated." This spring, the Academy of Country Music honored her with a nomination for Top New Female Vocalist 2000 and the summer will bring even more fun when she steps out on the "Girls' Night Out" Tour with Reba McEntire and Martina McBride. Comprised entirely of Carolyn Dawn Johnson's writings, Room With A View is obviously the work of someone able to bring the highly personal into play while making art. "Georgia," "Complicated, "Room With A View," "Masterpiece," "Complicated," and "One Day Closer" ? in fact, her entire song list ? are clearly proof that Carolyn is a master at transforming simple stories into richly detailed pictorials. Her songs create an ear-taunting soundtrack of modern day life and love: soaring harmonies, compelling vocals and searing emotional honesty. "I put everything about me out there," Carolyn says. "That's the way I live my life. Maybe I show too much, but I didn't really have a choice when it came to making the record. My favorite things on the record are the really personal parts. Someone said, ?How do you feel about exposing your innermost self like that?' and I said, ?I just don't think there's any other way to do it. I don't think it could have been anything else. That would have been lying to my listeners and lying to myself." Room With A View is also a vivid display of Carolyn's impressive reputation within the Nashville music community. Notable guests on the album include Martina McBride, Marty Stuart, Kim Carnes, Matraca Berg, Al Anderson, Mary Ann Kennedy and other artists whose respect for Carolyn's music led them to lend their singing and playing talents. "It was unbelievable to be standing there next to someone that I've looked up to for all these years - and realize that they were there to sing or play on my album." All of these elements were assembled in a first-time collaboration between Carolyn and producer Paul Worley (Dixie Chicks, Martina McBride). "Paul and I met almost a year before I was signed to Arista. He offered then to produce my record ? and of course I was honored to get to work with him.Sharing a production credit is beyond anything I ever imagined. It has been a wonderful learning experience." Carolyn's path to recording success began in 1992 when she made the decision to make music her life career goal. "I knew I had to be in city where there was a music community, so I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia and began attending recording engineering school. Once there, I continued to set small goals and worked to meet them."  Learning the technical aspects of the business by day and continuing to write songs and waitress at night, she studied Billboard and Music Row Magazine each week to learn who was who in the business. Intrigued by a TV commercial on the Nashville Network, she sent away for a songwriting video featuring hit Nashville writers to learn more about her craft. Through the video she joined the Nashville Songwriters Association International and traveled to Nashville for the first time in 1994 to participate in one of its workshops. The positive feedback she received added further legitimacy to her quest. For three years, she commuted the 3000 miles between Vancouver and Nashville until she was able to obtain a work visa and move to her dream town permanently in 1997.Her talent, drive and practical, goal-setting approach opened more and more doors. She began singing demos for other writers, and began writing with some of them. Late in 1997, she signed a publishing deal with Patrick Joseph Music, home to one of her heroes, Matraca Berg, among others. In between gigs, she waited tables and tended bar at Phil Vassar's Hard Day's Nightclub. Late night jam sessions at Phil's club and songwriting demos featuring her unmistakable voice began getting attention from label execs. Next, Carolyn Dawn Johnson credits began appearing as a studio vocalist on album releases for Patty Loveless, Martina McBride, Mindy McCready, Loretta Lynn and Kenny Rogers. Writing "cuts" followed for Kathy Mattea, Pam Tillis, Linda Davis and more. Then in 1999 it snowballed: a record deal, a hit single on radio with Chely Wright and an opportunity to tour as backup singer and guitarist for long time idol, Martina McBride. "My plan was to focus on writing, and then, in a year or two, aim for a record deal," Carolyn remembers. "That happened alright, that and more! I feel like I got a few bonuses to my dream." Reflecting on the professionals that she aligned with when she moved to Nashville, Carolyn states, "I have had a great team of people around me and a record company that didn't try to change me. I am very lucky," she says. "I hope Room With A View can show listeners what I've always believed about music ? it's powerful, it can reach into our souls, it's important. I don't know what I'd do without it." It is this philosophy that makes Room With A View such a compelling opening salvo from singer-songwriter-producer Carolyn Dawn Johnson. |
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Carolyn Dawn Johnson
Faith Hill
Born: September 21, 1967
One of the biggest female country stars of the '90s and 2000s, Faith Hill also took advantage of the inroads Shania Twain made into pop territory, becoming an enormous crossover success by the end of the millennium. Of course, Hill's movie star good looks certainly helped her cause, and her much-celebrated marriage to fellow country star Tim McGraw gave her career an extra kick of glamour and mystique. Hill may not have appealed to country purists, but she had the star power of a diva even before her pop success.
Faith Hill was born Audrey Faith Perry on September 21, 1967, in Jackson, MS, and grew up in the nearby small town of Star. She was singing for her family as young as age three and first performed publicly at a 4-H luncheon when she was seven. Hill spent much of her childhood singing wherever the opportunity arose, influenced primarily by Reba McEntire, and at age 17 formed a band that played local rodeos. At 19, she quit college and moved to Nashville to make it as a singer, first finding work selling T-shirts. During this time, she was married briefly to music executive Dan Hill. Eventually she was hired as a secretary at a music publishing firm, where she was discovered by accident while singing to herself one day. Encouraged by company head Gary Morris, Hill became a demo singer for the firm and also performed professionally as a harmony vocalist behind singer/songwriter/producer Gary Burr, who produced Hill's own demo tape. A Warner Brothers executive caught Burr and Hill's act at a Nashville club, and wound up signing Hill to a solo deal.
Hill released her debut album, Take Me as I Am, in late 1993, with producer Scott Hendricks at the helm. Success wasn't long in coming; the lead single "Wild One" raced up the country charts en route to a four-week run at number one early the next year, making her the first female country singer in 30 years to top the charts for that long with her debut single. The follow-up, a countrified cover of Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart," also hit number one, as did the album's title track, and Take Me as I Am wound up selling over three million copies. Hill was set to build on her success right away, but had to undergo surgery on her vocal cords, which delayed the recording of her next album. Nevertheless, the wait wasn't unreasonable, and It Matters to Me appeared in the summer of 1995. The title track became her fourth number one country single, and it was accompanied by a string of Top Ten hits that helped push initial sales of the album past the three million mark. Hill was by now a firmly established country hitmaker, and she continued her active touring schedule by teaming up with Tim McGraw in 1996 for the Spontaneous Combustion Tour. It was an apt name, as Hill married McGraw that October. The couple's first child, daughter Gracie, was born in May of 1997, and not long after, their duet "It's Your Love" -- recorded for McGraw's Everywhere album -- was burning up the country charts, staying at number one for six weeks.
Hill returned in the spring of 1998 with Faith, which provided the first signs that she was interested in crossing over to pop audiences, even if the still-countrified music often straddled the fence instead of making her ambitions explicit. The single "This Kiss" proved the savvy of her approach; not only did it top the country charts for three weeks, but it also became her first pop hit, climbing to number seven. By the time "This Kiss" had run its course on the charts, Hill had given birth to her second daughter with McGraw, Maggie. If Hill had been a star in the country world, she was now rapidly becoming a superstar, known not just for her music but also her pure celebrity; she also signed an endorsement deal with Cover Girl makeup. Her next two singles, "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me" (another duet with McGraw) and "Let Me Let Go," hit number one country, though they didn't duplicate the pop success of "This Kiss."
Faith, released in 1998, became Hill's biggest-selling album yet, eventually moving over six million copies and reaching the Top Ten on the LP charts; plus, it became crystal clear that Hill held major crossover appeal. Accordingly, she re-entered the studio immediately after her supporting tour and cut Breathe, a full-fledged bid for pop and adult contemporary success. Breathe entered the charts at number one upon its release in late 1999, and its title track became Hill's biggest hit yet; it spent six weeks on top of the country charts and was an even bigger hit on the adult contemporary charts. While it only climbed to number two pop, the single had such staying power that it wound up the biggest hit of the year 2000. The follow-ups were pretty successful in their own right: "The Way You Love Me" and "There You'll Be" both hit the pop Top Ten, with the former topping the country charts and the latter hitting number one AC. Hill also scored a Top Ten country hit with "Let's Make Love," a third duet with McGraw, and the two teamed up for another tour in 2000. Breathe was a bona fide blockbuster, selling over seven million copies in the U.S. and earning her a slew of award nominations. Hill spent much of 2001 taking a break and spending time with Audrey, her third daughter with McGraw.
Miranda Lambert
Born: November 10, 1983
Before becoming one of country music's most popular females, songwriter Miranda Lambert grew up in Lindale, TX, a small town 80 miles east of Dallas. The daughter of a country guitarist (Rick Lambert) and a detective agency owner, she was raised in a house dedicated to country music. Lambert began entering country talent contests when she was 16, including an appearance with the Johnny High Country Music Review in Arlington, TX. She learned to play guitar and began writing her own songs while continuing to enter various competitions, one of which earned her an appearance in a potato chip advertisement and the 2001 teen comedy Slap Her She's French. At 17 years old, she formed the Texas Pride Band and began gigging professionally, and later in 2001 -- with financial help from her father -- she showcased her songwriting skills by releasing an independent CD, Miranda Lambert. Two of the album's tracks, "Texas Pride" and "Somebody Else," even entered the Texas music charts.
In 2003, Lambert successfully auditioned for Nashville Star, a reality TV series modeled after the American Idol format. She decamped to Nashville in order to appear on the show and eventually finished third in the competition, which led to a recording contract with Sony. Still only 21 years old, she released her first major-label single, "Me and Charlie Talking," in 2004, with the full-length Kerosene following in 2005. Lambert wrote or co-wrote ten of the album's 11 tracks, several of which became popular singles on country radio, and Kerosene eventually went platinum.
Reba Mcentire
Born: March 28, 1955
Reba McEntire was the most successful female recording artist in country music in the 1980s and 1990s, during which time she scored 22 number one hits and released five gold albums, six platinum albums, two double-platinum albums, four triple-platinum albums, a quadruple-platinum album, and a quintuple-platinum album, for certified album sales of 33.5 million over the 20-year period. While she continued to sell records in healthy numbers into the 21st century, she expanded her activities as an actress in film and on the legitimate stage, and particularly on television, where she starred in a long-running situation comedy. Such diversification made her the greatest crossover star to emerge from country music since Dolly Parton.
Reba Nell McEntire was born March 28, 1955, in McAlester, OK, the second daughter and third of four children of Clark Vincent McEntire, a professional steer roper, and Jacqueline (Smith) McEntire, a former school teacher. Her older brother Del Stanley ("Pake") McEntire also became a country singer, while her younger sister Martha Susan ("Susie") McEntire Luchsinger became a gospel singer. McEntire was raised on the 7,000-acre family ranch in Chockie, OK, traveling with her parents and siblings to the rodeos at which her father competed. Clark McEntire was named World Champion Steer Roper three times, in 1957, 1958, and 1961. (McEntire's grandfather, John McEntire, had won the same title in 1934.) McEntire's mother had aspired to a career in music but never pursued it. She encouraged her children to sing and taught them songs and harmony during the long car trips between rodeos. Alice McEntire, the oldest child, did not actively seek a musical career, but the other three were members of a country group, the Kiowa High School Cowboy Band, as early as 1969, when McEntire began attending Kiowa High School in Kiowa, OK. She also entered local talent contests on her own. In 1971, the Kiowa High School Cowboy Band recorded a single, "The Ballad of John McEntire," for the tiny Boss Records label, which pressed 1,000 copies. As the early '70s went on, the band gave way to a trio, the Singing McEntires, consisting of the three siblings, which performed at rodeos. McEntire also followed in the family tradition of competing, becoming a barrel racer, the only rodeo event open to women.
McEntire graduated from high school in June 1973 and enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. While attending the National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City on December 10, 1974, she sang the national anthem on network television. Also present at the rodeo was country star Red Steagall, who was impressed by her voice and asked her to go to Nashville to record some demos for his song publishing company. After she did so in March 1975 during her spring break from college, he took the tapes around town trying to get her a record deal and succeeded with Mercury Records, which signed her to a contract on November 11, 1975, that called for her to record two singles for the label. On January 22, 1976, she entered a Nashville recording studio and cut the first of those singles, "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand," which, upon its release, climbed to number 88 in the Billboard country singles chart in May. On June 21, 1976, she married Charlie Battles, a champion steer wrestler she had met at a rodeo. Battles later became her business manager.
On September 16, 1976, McEntire did her second Mercury recording session, which produced her second single, "(There's Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and a Man." It peaked at number 86 in March 1977. In the meantime, on December 16, 1976, she graduated from college on an accelerated three-and-a-half-year program with a major in elementary education and a minor in music, freeing her to pursue her career full-time. Her record label, however, seemed in no particular hurry, although it picked up her option for further recordings. Her third single, "Glad I Waited Just for You," recorded on April 13, 1977, peaked at number 88 in August, the same month Mercury released her debut album, Reba McEntire, which did not chart. On September 17, 1977, she made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry.
Two and a half years into her recording career, with very little to show for it, McEntire was paired with labelmate Jacky Ward for the two-sided single "Three Sheets in the Wind"/"I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" (the B-side a cover of the pop hit by England Dan & John Ford Coley), which reached number 20 in July 1978. That and her touring as an opening act for Steagall, Ward, and others increased her exposure, and her next solo single, "Last Night, Ev'ry Night," reached number 28 in October, beginning a string of singles that made it at least into the country Top 40. She first got into the Top 20 with her cover of the Patsy Cline hit "Sweet Dreams," which peaked at number 19 in November 1979. She still wasn't selling any albums, however; her second LP, Out of a Dream, released in September 1979, did not chart.
McEntire continued to make strides on the singles chart, reaching the Top Ten for the first time with "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven," which peaked at number eight in August 1980. Feel the Fire, her third album, released in October 1980, was another failure, but after a couple more Top 20 singles she reached the Top Five with "Today All Over Again" in October 1981. The song was featured on her fourth album, Heart to Heart, released in September, which helped it become her first to chart, reaching number 42 in the country LP list. She achieved a new high on the singles chart in August 1982 when "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" reached number three. It was included on her fifth album, Unlimited, released in June 1982, which hit number 22. But that was only the beginning. The LP also spawned "Can't Even Get the Blues" and "You're the First Time I've Thought About Leaving," which became back-to-back number one hits in January and April 1983. By then, she had moved up from playing nightclubs and honky tonks to being the regular opening act for the Statler Brothers. She went on to work in the same capacity with Conway Twitty, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley, and others.
It might be argued that Mercury Records had taken a 20-year-old neophyte singing the national anthem at a rodeo and, over a period of more than seven years, groomed her until she became a chart-topping country star. McEntire appears not to have viewed things that way, however. On the contrary, she seems to have been unhappy with the songs the label gave her to sing and the musical approach taken on her records, feeling that she was being pushed too much in a country-pop direction. She also has criticized Mercury's promotional efforts on her behalf. And, despite her recent success, the long years of development meant she was nowhere near repaying the investment Mercury had made in her, which, of course, was charged against her potential royalties on the company books. (Although she received yearly advances from the label, she later said that she did not see her first royalties from Mercury until 1988.) So, she sought a release from her contract and, after cutting one more album for Mercury, her sixth LP, Behind the Scene, released in September 1983, she signed to MCA Records, her new contract taking effect on October 1, 1983. The first fruits of the switchover suggested that not much had changed. Her debut MCA single, "Just a Little Love," was a Top Five hit in June 1984, shortly after the release of an album of the same name, but that LP was actually less successful than Unlimited.
McEntire took strong action. Set to have Harold Shedd (Alabama's producer, and thus a hot commercial property) produce her next album, she rejected his suggestions for songs and the sweetened arrangements he imposed on them and appealed to Jimmy Bowen, the newly installed president of MCA's country division. Bowen allowed her to pick her own material and to eliminate the strings and other pop touches used on Just a Little Love and her Mercury releases. The result was the pointedly titled My Kind of Country, released in November 1984, which was dominated by covers of old country songs previously performed by Ray Price, Carl Smith, Connie Smith, and Faron Young. Even before the album's release, however, and before its advance single, "How Blue," hit number one, McEntire was named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association (CMA) on October 8, 1984. It was a surprising win; Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Charly McClain had all arguably been more successful during the previous 12 months. But it was a forward-looking recognition for a performer who was wisely aligning herself with such artists as Ricky Skaggs and George Strait as a "new traditionalist," moving country music back to its roots after the decline of the pop-country Urban Cowboy phenomenon of the early '80s.
"How Blue" hit number one in January 1985, followed by the second single from My Kind of Country, "Somebody Should Leave," which topped the chart in May as the album reached number 13. (Eventually, it was certified gold.) With such success, McEntire was able to start headlining her own concerts. For her next album, Have I Got a Deal for You, released in July 1985, she worked directly with Bowen, the two billed as co-producers. Another new traditionalist collection, it included her own composition "Only in My Mind," a Top Five hit, as well as a Top Ten hit in the title song; though the LP was not as successful as its predecessor, it too went gold over time, and it helped McEntire earn her second consecutive CMA award as Female Vocalist of the Year. Another important accolade came on January 14, 1986, when she became a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
Perhaps even more important than McEntire's decision to perform music in a more traditional country style was her search for material that she felt women would respond to. Just as Loretta Lynn had spoken for pre-feminist women in the 1960s, McEntire had begun to address the emotional and empowering concerns of women in the 1980s. "Whoever's in New England," her next single, released in January 1986 just ahead of an album of the same name, was a case in point. Kendal Franceschi and Quentin Powers' song was written in the voice of a Southern woman who believes her husband is having an affair during his business trips up north, but pledges that she will remain available to him when "whoever's in New England's through with you." It was a career-making song for McEntire, not least because it was promoted by her first music video. Reaching number one in May 1986, it marked a major breakthrough for her, beginning a string of chart-topping hits that didn't begin to slow down for the next three years. "Little Rock," the follow-up single, also hit number one, as did the Whoever's in New England album, her first LP to be certified gold. (It later went platinum.)
Her career in high gear, McEntire released her next album, What Am I Gonna Do About You, in September 1986, prefaced by a single of the same name that hit number one, as did the gold-selling LP, which also featured the chart-topping single "One Promise Too Late." On October 13, 1986, McEntire not only won her third consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year Award from the CMA, but also was named Entertainer of the Year. On February 24, 1987, she won her first Grammy Award for Country Female Vocal for "Whoever's in New England." She released Reba McEntire's Greatest Hits in April; it became her first platinum album and eventually sold over three million copies. (It also became her first album ever to cross over to the pop charts.) On June 25, 1987, she filed for divorce from Charlie Battles, her husband of 11 years. After her divorce was settled and Battles was awarded the couple's ranch in Oklahoma, she moved to Nashville.
McEntire's string of hits continued with the release of The Last One to Know in September 1987, prefaced by a single of the same name that reached number one in December. The album, also featuring the number one hit "Love Will Find Its Way to You," reached number three and eventually went platinum. McEntire won an unprecedented fourth straight CMA award as Female Vocalist of the Year in October. In November, she released a holiday album, Merry Christmas to You, which, over the years, sold more than two million copies. She engendered controversy with her next album release, Reba, which appeared in May 1988. Here, an artist who had jumped on the new traditionalist bandwagon in 1984 abruptly jumped off, returning to more of a pop-oriented style, without a fiddle or a steel guitar anywhere. The album's leadoff single was "Sunday Kind of Love," a cover of the 1947 Jo Stafford pop hit. It peaked at number five in July, actually the worst showing for a McEntire single in nearly three years. But the album had already begun a run of eight weeks at number one by then, and it was supported by the subsequent chart-topping singles "I Know How He Feels" and "New Fool at an Old Game." It eventually went platinum. Also in 1988, McEntire founded Starstruck Entertainment, a company that handled management, booking, publishing, and other aspects of her career and, eventually, represented other artists as well.
Sweet Sixteen, released in May 1989, was actually McEntire's 14th regular studio album, but her 16th counting her authorized MCA hits compilation and Christmas album. The leadoff single was a cover of the Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown" that hit number one in July, and it was followed by three Top Ten hits, "'Til Love Comes Again," "Little Girl," and "Walk On," as the LP spent 13 weeks at the top of the charts, with sales eventually crossing the million mark. It also reached the pop Top 100. McEntire had already recorded her next album, Live, the previous April for release in September and, though it took more than a decade, another platinum certification. That gave her some breathing space. On June 3, 1989, she married Narvel Blackstock, her manager, who had been part of her organization since joining her band as its steel guitar player in 1980. On February 23, 1990, she bore him a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock. A month earlier, she had made her feature film acting debut in the comic horror film Tremors, which had been shot the previous spring.
McEntire was back on tour by May 1990, and she returned to record making in September with her 15th regular studio album, Rumor Has It, which was prefaced by the single "You Lie," a number one hit. Three other songs from the LP placed in the country Top Ten: the title song, a revival of Bobbie Gentry's 1969 hit "Fancy," and "Fallin' Out of Love." The album eventually sold three million copies. McEntire was on tour promoting it when, on March 16, 1991, seven members of her band and her road manager were killed in a plane crash after a show in San Diego. She dedicated her next album, For My Broken Heart, to them when it was released in October. The disc was another massive hit, going gold and platinum simultaneously shortly after its release and eventually selling four million copies, its singles including the chart-topping title song and another number one, "Is There Life Out There." Also in 1991, McEntire co-starred in the TV mini-series The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw. Her 17th album, It's Your Call, was released in December 1992, and, like Rumor Has It, it was an immediate million seller, eventually going triple platinum. (It was also her first Top Ten pop album.) Its biggest single was "The Heart Won't Lie," a duet with Vince Gill that hit number one in April 1993. McEntire's next chart-topper was also a duet, "Does He Love You," sung with Linda Davis; it hit number one in November 1993 and was included on her September release Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, an album that sold two million copies practically out of the box and another three million over the next five years. "Does He Love You" won McEntire her second Grammy, for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, and a CMA award for Vocal Event. She also appeared in the TV movie The Man from Left Field in 1993.
By 1994, while continuing to reign as country's most successful female singer, McEntire was increasingly turning her attention to other concerns. Her 18th regular studio album, Read My Mind, appeared in April. Another instant million-seller that went on to go triple platinum, it threw off five country chart singles, among them the chart-topping "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" and, controversially, "She Thinks His Name Was John," a song about a woman who contracts AIDS from a one-night stand. Even McEntire's star power could propel such an atypical country subject only as high as number 15 in the charts. Meanwhile, she had parts in two feature films released during the summer, a speaking role in the drama North and a cameo in the children's comedy The Little Rascals. (She also made an uncredited appearance in the Western film Maverick and was heard on the soundtrack album.) She executive produced and starred in the TV movie Is There Life Out There? (based on her song), and she published her autobiography, Reba: My Story, which became a best-seller.
McEntire's 19th album was called Starting Over, released in October 1995. Intended to mark the 20th anniversary of her recording career, it was a collection of covers of well-known songs. It not only topped the country charts but hit number five in the pop charts, selling a million copies out of the box. But, boasting only one Top Ten hit, a revival of Lee Greenwood's "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands," among three chart singles, and not achieving a multi-platinum certification, it suggested that McEntire finally had peaked commercially as far as country music was concerned. (In a considerable departure for a country singer, MCA released a dance remix of McEntire's revival of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" from the album that reached number two on Billboard's dance chart.) That didn't keep her from starring in another TV mini-series, Buffalo Gals, playing famed Western sharpshooter Annie Oakley, a part her rodeo background suited her to perfectly. She bounced back on the country charts somewhat with her 20th album, What If It's You, released in November 1996. The album spawned four Top 20 hits, with "How Was I to Know" reaching number one and "The Fear of Being Alone" and "I'd Rather Ride Around with You" each getting to number two. Simultaneously certified gold and platinum, the album eventually topped two million copies.
The singles drawn from What If It's You kept McEntire's name in the country charts throughout 1997, as did the holiday benefit record "What If," the proceeds from which were donated to the Salvation Army. But for the first time since 1978, she did not release a new album, even a compilation, during the calendar year. Aiming for a splash, she teamed up with the popular country duo Brooks & Dunn in the spring of 1998 for a single called "If You See Him/If You See Her." It hit number one in June, helping to set up the release of her 21st album, If You See Him, which also brought her three additional Top Ten hits on its way to selling a million copies. She appeared in the TV movie Forever Love (the title of one of those Top Ten hits) during the year and made several guest-star appearances on TV series.
After publishing her second book of memoirs, Comfort from a Country Quilt, in May 1999, McEntire had two new albums ready for the fall. Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection, a September release, was her second holiday CD, which she accompanied with a TV movie, Secret of Giving. The disc eventually went gold. So Good Together, issued in November, was her 22nd regular studio album, prefaced by the Top Five single "What Do You Say." Although none of the songs from the album topped the country charts, it did feature a second Top Five hit, "I'll Be," and a Top 20 hit in "We're So Good Together," and it went platinum before the end of 2000.
As in 1997, McEntire went without an album release in 2000, and in this case, it turned out that she definitely was positioning herself for a career beyond country music, as events in 2001 showed. In February of that year, she stepped in as a replacement star in the Broadway revival of Irving Berlin's musical Annie Get Your Gun that had begun performances in 1999 with Bernadette Peters in the title role of Annie Oakley. Barry and Fran Weissler, the producers of the revival, were known on Broadway for making money by keeping production costs down and by the extensive use of what was derisively called "stunt casting": bringing in a well-known personality, often one without much of a theater background, as a replacement to extend the run of a show, as a means of exciting the tourist crowd who would recognize the name of a prominent TV star, for example. McEntire had been preceded as a replacement in Annie Get Your Gun by soap opera star Susan Lucci and TV actress Cheryl Ladd, both of whom kept the show going while being largely ignored or derided by theater insiders.
McEntire turned out to be an entirely different proposition. First, although she lacked legitimate theater experience, she had by now done plenty of acting on television and even a little in film. Second, she had long since brought unusually high production values to her concerts that included choreography and costume changes, good preparation for similar demands in the theater. Third, she could, of course, sing. And fourth, with her rodeo background and Oklahoma accent, she was an ideal Annie Oakley, just as she had been in her previous TV portrayal. (Never mind that the real Annie Oakley was from Ohio; in everybody's mind, this female sharpshooter and star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, the precursor to the modern rodeo, was a Westerner.) The result was a triumph for McEntire. Reviews were ecstatic, and tickets sold out. The Tony Awards did not have a category for replacements (one has since been added), but she was given special awards for her performance by the Drama Desk, the Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World. She stayed in the show until June 22, 2001. Unfortunately, there was no new cast album recorded to immortalize her appearance.
During the run of Annie Get Your Gun, McEntire was seen in a small part in the film One Night a McCool's, released in April 2001. Her most extensive filmed acting role began on October 5, 2001, however, when the half-hour situation comedy Reba premiered on the WB TV network (later renamed the CW network). The show became the primary focus of McEntire's activities, and she moved to Los Angeles to accommodate it. She had not, however, given up country music entirely. In the summer of 2001, she released a single, "I'm a Survivor," that peaked in the country Top Five and prefaced a new compilation, Greatest Hits, Vol. 3: I'm a Survivor, released in October. It topped the country charts and went gold.
McEntire was occupied primarily with her TV series during 2002 and 2003. After two years, she finally returned to record-making in the summer of 2003 with a new single, "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain," which peaked in the country Top 20. Room to Breathe, her 23rd regular studio album and first in three years, followed in November and went platinum over the next nine months. The disc's second single, "Somebody," hit number one, and it was followed by another Top Ten hit, "He Gets That from Me," and the Top 20 "My Sister." Reba continued on into 2004 and 2005. McEntire found time in the spring of 2005 to return to the musical theater, if only for one night. In another piece of inspired casting, she portrayed the "cock-eyed optimist" from Arkansas, Ensign Nellie Forbush, in a special concert version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific performed at Carnegie Hall. The all-star production, also featuring Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell and actor Alec Baldwin, was filmed for a PBS special on the network's Great Performances series and recorded for an album, both of which appeared in 2006.
By 2005, the catalogs of Mercury and MCA had been combined in the major label Universal, and in November MCA released McEntire's first combined hits collection, the double-CD set Reba: 1's, with two newly recorded tracks. It went gold and platinum simultaneously. In 2006, as she began the sixth season of Reba, McEntire also voiced a character in the holiday film release Charlotte's Web. The sixth season of Reba proved to be the last, as the show signed off the air on February 18, 2007. Not one to sit idle, McEntire toured the U.S. from May 25 through August. On September 18, 2007, she released a new album, Reba Duets, featuring such guests as Justin Timberlake, Don Henley, Kelly Clarkson, Kenny Chesney, Carole King, Faith Hill, Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill, Rascal Flatts, LeAnn Rimes, and Trisha Yearwood. It was prefaced by the single "Because of You," a duet with Clarkson. For the week ending October 6, 2007, Reba Duets became McEntire's first album ever to enter the pop charts at number one.
Chad Brownlee
VANCOUVER CANUCKS LOSS IS COUNTRY MUSIC’S GAIN
Born: Kelowna BC
Education: Bachelor of Science in Psychology
Interesting Facts: 6th Round Draft Pick by the Vancouver Canucks in 2003
Country artist Chad Brownlee has a new goal
With a Best New Artist Showcase Award from the Canadian Country Music Conference and a 2010 CCMA Rising Star nomination under his belt, Chad Brownlee is quickly earning accolades across Canada’s country music scene. Now up for a Canadian Radio Industry Award and an Indie Award for Country Group/Artist of the year at this year’s Canadian Music Week, Brownlee will also take part in a performance on Friday, March 11th in Toronto at the Cadillac Lounge. The B.C. native who was a Vancouver Canucks sixth round draft pick, has long had a dual passion for both music and hockey. A career in music was something he never imagined he could pursue, but after a year of injuries, Brownlee found himself at a career crossroads. Driven to follow his musical ambitions the singer officially gave up his jersey and has never looked back.
Brownlee’s self-titled debut album was released earlier this year. Currently, his single “Day After You” has reached number 12 on the Chevy Cross Canada Countdown and has reached Top 20 on Canadian Country radio. The album’s first hit single “The Best That I Can (Superhero)”, a song Brownlee co-wrote, reached the top 20 and “Hood Of My Car” peaked at number 11 and was chosen as the iTunes pick of the week during the Canadian Country Music Awards week. From self-taught musician to up and coming star, Brownlee recently filmed a TV Special for CMT titled ‘CMT 4 Tracks.’ The 30 minute primetime show highlights Brownlee’s strong vocals and skills as a songwriter.
Brownlee’s song writing skills were first acknowledged in his fourth year at Minnesota State University when he was nominated for the NCAA Hockey Humanitarian award for his song ‘The Hero I See.’ The song, written in memory of a boy who lost his battle with leukemia, raised thousands of dollars for the Anthony Ford Foundation, which helps underprivileged kids play hockey.
Education: Bachelor of Science in Psychology
Interesting Facts: 6th Round Draft Pick by the Vancouver Canucks in 2003
Country artist Chad Brownlee has a new goal
With a Best New Artist Showcase Award from the Canadian Country Music Conference and a 2010 CCMA Rising Star nomination under his belt, Chad Brownlee is quickly earning accolades across Canada’s country music scene. Now up for a Canadian Radio Industry Award and an Indie Award for Country Group/Artist of the year at this year’s Canadian Music Week, Brownlee will also take part in a performance on Friday, March 11th in Toronto at the Cadillac Lounge. The B.C. native who was a Vancouver Canucks sixth round draft pick, has long had a dual passion for both music and hockey. A career in music was something he never imagined he could pursue, but after a year of injuries, Brownlee found himself at a career crossroads. Driven to follow his musical ambitions the singer officially gave up his jersey and has never looked back.
Brownlee’s self-titled debut album was released earlier this year. Currently, his single “Day After You” has reached number 12 on the Chevy Cross Canada Countdown and has reached Top 20 on Canadian Country radio. The album’s first hit single “The Best That I Can (Superhero)”, a song Brownlee co-wrote, reached the top 20 and “Hood Of My Car” peaked at number 11 and was chosen as the iTunes pick of the week during the Canadian Country Music Awards week. From self-taught musician to up and coming star, Brownlee recently filmed a TV Special for CMT titled ‘CMT 4 Tracks.’ The 30 minute primetime show highlights Brownlee’s strong vocals and skills as a songwriter.Brownlee’s song writing skills were first acknowledged in his fourth year at Minnesota State University when he was nominated for the NCAA Hockey Humanitarian award for his song ‘The Hero I See.’ The song, written in memory of a boy who lost his battle with leukemia, raised thousands of dollars for the Anthony Ford Foundation, which helps underprivileged kids play hockey.
Deric Ruttan
It's almost December, but it's an unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon in middle Tennessee. Birds chatter in a nearby tree, the sun is low in the sky, and steam is rising from Deric Ruttan's coffee cup.
The singer is sitting on a church pew on his back porch. "This pew came out of a hundred-year old church in Georgia. I love old things, things that have a sense of history about them. You can just imagine the sermons this old pew witnessed." As he talks, his dog, a beagle named Sam (short for Samantha), hops up on the pew beside him. He pats her head. We are a few miles outside Nashville, Tennessee, where Ruttan, and his wife and five step-children, have made their home for over a decade.
While he relishes time spent on his back porch, Ruttan is quick to point out he doesn't get to do it often. He points to a pile of not-yet-split firewood. "Look," he smiles, "clearly I've been busy. That wood's been heaped up there for a month. I haven't had time to split it!"
Busy is right. The Canadian-born singer/songwriter took some heat from fans when four-and-a-half years passed between the release of his debut, critically acclaimed album Deric Ruttan, and its follow-up, First Time In A Long Time. Determined not to repeat history, Ruttan was back in the studio a mere 16 months after First Time In A Long Time's release, working on new music. The resulting disc, Sunshine, is due to hit store shelves on January 12, 2010.
Deric Ruttan was raised just outside Bracebridge, Ontario, on land where his great-grandfather made moonshine in the 1930's. Taking his cues from musical heroes like Steve Earle, he moved to Nashville and spent seven years 'in the trenches' in the country music capitol of the world, struggling to make a name for himself. Eventually he signed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and soon after inked a recording contract with Disney's Lyric Street Records. When the album was released in Canada, the CD yielded 5 Top Ten singles, (including the hits, "When You Come Around", "Shine", and "Take The Wheel"), and earned him a "Best Album" nomination at the 2004 Canadian Country Music Awards. "Male Vocalist" and "Rising Star" nominations followed, as did the Grand Ol' Opry appearances, and a high-profile national tour. In 2004 he was named "Best New Solo Country Artist" at the Canadian Radio Music Awards. Stateside though, Ruttan's artist success was about to be eclipsed by his success as a songwriter.
In 2003, just as his first single "When You Come Around" was released, he celebrated his first #1 as a songwriter when friend and collaborator Dierks Bentley took the Ruttan/Bentley/Brett Beavers co-write "What Was I Thinkin'" to the top of the charts in the US. The song helped set Bentley on the path to country stardom. (To date, Bentley has recorded six Ruttan co-writes, including the 2005 chart-topper "Lot Of Leavin' Left To Do".) In 2004 Ruttan's "My Way", recorded by Aaron Pritchett, was the most-played Canadian country song of that year. Capitol Nashville's Eric Church had an American Billboard hit with his and Ruttan's "Guys Like Me" in 2007, and cuts on other acts followed (over two dozen to-date), on artists like Gary Allan, Paul Brandt, Doc Walker, Jason Blaine, and The Higgins. In September of 2007, Ruttan was awarded his first Canadian Country Music Award (CCMA) for Songwriter Of The Year (along with co-writers Aaron Pritchett and Mitch Merrett), for "Hold My Beer", recorded by Pritchett. With his songwriting cache increasing, Ruttan struggled to balance his artist and songwriting careers.
"It wasn't just that writing songs for other artists was taking time away from me writing my next record", says Ruttan. "It was that suddenly I was known as a guy who'd written radio hits for other acts – the bar had been raised for me, creatively, because of that. I felt the next record I made needed to be really, really good."
It proved worth the wait. The aptly titled First Time In A Long Time yielded four hit radio singles at Canadian country radio, the title track, the raucous "Lovin' You Is Killin' Me", the Eagles-esque "California Plates" (co-written with members of Manitoba country band Doc Walker), and "Good Time", a duet with Ruttan's friend and collaborator Dierks Bentley. (The video for "Good Time" reached #1 on CMT Canada's video countdown). At the Canadian Country Music Awards that September, Ruttan earned a total of four nominations – "Male Artist", "Songwriter", "Record Producer", and "Best Album," and closed the show performing alongside The Guess Who/Bachman Turner Overdrive guitar legend Randy Bachman. By the following year, "First Time In A Long Time" had garnered so much radio airplay that it earned Ruttan and co-writer Jimmy Rankin a SOCAN Country Music Award at the 2009 SOCAN Awards in Toronto.
Over the course of touring the First Time In A Long Time album in 2008 and 2009, Ruttan and his band developed a reputation for putting on high-energy shows. How his songs translate to a live audience is important to Ruttan. "I've played more in the last year-and-a-half than I played in the three previous years combined. When writing and recording the new album, I tried to keep in mind the energy of our live show. To a degree that influenced song selection."
The energy and the intimacy of Ruttan's live performances come through on every track on Sunshine. As Ruttan wrote or co-wrote every song on the album, it's also a very personal body of work. "As a singer/songwriter, my albums usually end up being windows into where I am in my life when I write and record them. It's never an intentional thing – but that's what ends up happening."
The album's lead-off single, "Sing That Song Again", is a nostalgic look at youth, the friendships made early in life, and the role music plays in our lives and relationships.
"I wrote 'Sing That Song Again' with my friend Ben Hayslip. We wanted to write a song that spoke to the rural way we grew up, and the recklessness you feel when you're young. The song ended up using music as a metaphor for the lives we lived when we were younger – and the way we sometimes yearn to get back to that a little bit as we grow older. There's an energy to this song that I love."
There are "be proud of where you come from" songs, as on "Where The Train Don't Stop" -- an ode to the singer's hometown. "I wanted to keep the lyric as real as possible on that one," says Ruttan. "My grandfather's best friend's name was Alan Doley, and he really did die in World War II. And, the CNR (Canadian National Railway), train really did run through the middle of my hometown – but it didn't stop there, not in my lifetime."
Themes of optimism and hope are reoccurring motifs on Sunshine.
The lyrics paint vivid pictures of small town life in concise detail, framed within big, melodic choruses. Such is the case with "Up All Night", (co-written with Jimmy Rankin), a song about a Legion Hall dance in which a decidedly blue collar crowd cuts loose on a Friday night. With its anthemic chorus and rabble-rousing call-to-arms lyric, the song is destined to be a Ruttan live-show favourite. After hearing the song, you feel like you should go home, sober up, and wash the smoke out of your clothes
The album's title track, with it's prominent 12-String electric guitars and fiddles, was inspired by Ruttan's wife, a songwriter and soap maker. "She's the eternal optimist," smiles Ruttan. "I can be moody. I can get very dark. She sees the positive in everything and never fails to lift me up. That's where the line, They see the rain/You see the sunshine came from."
The theme of family is also a recurring one on Sunshine. The wish for his children's happiness as they make their way in the world led Ruttan and collaborator Brett Beavers, also a father, to write "One In A Million". "That's How I Wanna Go Out" tells the story of an old man who opts for spending his last days in the arms of the woman he loves, rather than medicated, in a hospital bed. 'Cause I came in this world in the arms of a woman who loved me, the old man tells his doctor, And that's how I wanna go out.
On the Springsteen-esque "We're All Alright", the album broaches a subject Ruttan's music has previously never addressed – politics. "I live in the United States, and earlier this year I was sitting watching a TV news network with my kids and I started getting angry. I mean, of course we're in an economic downturn but I'm sick of all the 'sky-is-falling' nonsense. It's sensationalist. It seems certain networks prey on people's fears and sow seeds of worry, but the fact is, country people have always found a way to survive. That thought inspired 'We're All Alright'."
Ruttan's band will get a chance to shine on "Just To Get To You", a haunting, whiskey-fueled dream-state that ends in a two-minute guitar/fiddle/pedal steel solo, the instruments trading fiery licks back and forth.
And while the album rocks, it has its poignant moments. In "I Still Think Of You", the stark confessional of a recovering alcoholic, the singer's triumph over whiskey is tempered by the regret he feels for past hurts he caused. The intimate vocal performance and bare bones production underscore the song's message.
Next month, Ruttan and his band will embark on a 23-city cross-Canada tour that will take them from British Columbia to PEI. "I love writing, recording, and producing records, but singing those songs for a live audience is the fourth critical step in the process. It completes the circle, and galvanizes the music."
"I'm a bit of a recluse when I'm home," he says, patting Sam's head, "so I'll miss being here, but there's nothing like traveling with your brothers, playing music for people." With the tour, Sunshine set for a January 12th release, and "Sing That Song Again" currently climbing the charts, Ruttan shows no sign of slowing down. He grins, "I may not get that wood split anytime soon..."
Luke Bryan
Leesburg , GA
On Family
My family is fun and crazy and they just love life. Things were always fast pace around my house we always had people stopping by and it was a wonderful place to grow up. Anytime I needed a guitar or money for something related to music it was there. They encouraged me more than anyone to move to Nashville. Jobs While Growing Up in Georgia:
Leesburg is a very small town and all the farmland was just outside of town. I did farm peanuts, corn and cotton, or let’s just say my dad did (laughs). Seriously, my life was spent on farms – hunting, fishing and just growing up. How Georgia Has Shaped You as a Songwriter and Artist:
It’s everything about me. All the people and the culture of the South is what I hope I am. Georgia is where I have most of my fans right now. They have helped shape me as an artist. My songs, whether original or covers, were always targeted to make them have a good time. Musical Influences:
Ronnie Milsap, Earl Thomas Conley, Conway Twitty, Alan Jackson, Alabama, George Strait, Lionel Ritchie, and Merle Haggard I would say are the biggest. What You Like Most About Music:
The power it has over people. The simple fact that someone could be having an awful day and your song or performance can make that all go away. The way it affects people’s lives and how they can remember what was going on in their life when they heard a certain song. What Made You Want to Become a Songwriter:
I knew it was important in the process of becoming an artist. I believe it is really how you get grounded in the music business. Most of all I think it’s just about the coolest job in the world - sit around all day and come up with songs. It’s fun to express yourself through lyrics and music. What You Like Most About Performing Live:
Looking into the faces of everyone and seeing how they are reacting to you as a singer and performer. Making them have the best time of their life. Having that kind of power is wonderful. Thoughts That Ran Through Your Head When Capitol Records Nashville Offered You a Record Deal:
“Oh my God. I’ve gotta call Mama and Daddy.” It was wonderful. All of my dreams and wishes came together right then and there in that room. CDs in Your Car Stereo Right Now:
Johnny Cash Live At San Quentin and Folsom Prison, Dierks Bentley’s first self-titled CD, Hank Jr. and Ronnie Milsap’s 40 Number Ones. Top 5 Favorite Albums:
Randy Travis, Storms of Life; Clint Black, Killin’ Time; Lionel Ritchie, Love Songs; Alabama, Closer You Get; and George Strait, Greatest Hits Volume 2 Instruments You Play:
Guitar and Piano. Favorite Food:
Rocky Road , a good filet, oysters on the half shell. Biggest Guilty Pleasure:
A huge bag of movie popcorn with a lot of salt and butter. Favorite Movie:
Rudy Hobbies:
Fishing, hunting, movies, basketball and watching ESPN. Pets:
I have an English Cocker named Maggie.
Biography:
Listen to Luke Bryan talk, and the natural twang in his voice tells you he’s from as deep into the rural South as a young man can be. Listen to Luke Bryan sing, and the true-as-dirt details tells you he writes about who he is and what he knows.This Capitol Records Nashville artist is a straight-up, down-home country boy, and his music makes that as clear as a sunny day on his family’s Georgia peanut farm.
“Even my friends in Nashville laugh sometimes at how country I am,” says the strapping singer-songwriter in his good-natured drawl. “I’ve lived in Nashville now for more than four years, but I’m still adjusting to it because I can’t do the things I’ve done my whole life. I go stir crazy, because I can’t just walk out my door and go fishing or hunting or do something outdoors.”
He grew up in Leesburg, Georgia—“It’s 100 miles north of the Florida border, 100 miles East of the Alabama border and in the middle of nowhere,” Luke says. The town didn’t get its first traffic light until two years ago, after he had left. Back home, he’d helped his father with his peanut and fertilizer businesses while playing sports and enjoying the great outdoors.
But everyone in Leesburg knew Luke loved to sing. He can remember his mother urging him to belt out George Strait songs over and over while she drove him into town to shop. By age 14, his parents bought him an Alvarez guitar. By 15, he’d become so good at entertaining his family that his father would take him down to a nearby club, Skinner’s, where he shared guitar licks and lead vocals with other local country singers. “Country music is all I’ve ever listened to and all I know,” Luke says. “I could name a hundred influences like—Conway Twitty, Alan Jackson, George Strait, Hank Williams Jr.”
At age 16, two local songwriters who’d enjoyed some success providing tunes for Nashville artists invited him to join their twice-a-week writing sessions at a local church. By that time, Luke led his own band, playing at Skinner’s and various community events.
Encouraged by everyone who heard him play, Luke planned to move to Nashville after high-schoolgraduation. Supported by his family, he was loading his car for the move when tragedy struck. His older brother Chris, Luke’s biggest supporter and one of his best friends, was killed in an auto accident the day Luke was to leave town. “That shut down all plans to move,” Luke says. “The only thing on my mind was being with my family.”
He continued to devote himself to music, finding escape and emotional release in its songs. He poured his feelings into his songwriting, and after enrolling in Georgia Southern University, Luke and his band would perform nearly every weekend on campus or at nearby clubs or parties. He eventually recorded an album of 10 songs, nine of which he’d written.
Despite everyone’s encouragement, he stubbornly refused to reconsider moving to Tennessee. After graduation, he went to work for his father’s agriculture business. Luke loved the work, but a year into it, his father took him for a drive. “Look, your heart is in your music,” his father told him. “It’s what you were meant to do. You either quit this job and move to Nashville, or I’m going to fire you.”
Luke accepted the challenge. He moved to Nashville on Sept. 1, 2001. Within two months, he’d signed a publishing deal with a company owned by the famed songwriter Roger Murrah. Luke spent time honing his material, building up a catalog of songs that were undeniable—and built wholly around his own personality and down-home point of view. When Capitol Records heard his new songs, they signed him on the spot. “It was wonderful. All of my dreams and wishes came together right then and there in that room.”
“All told, I’m glad I waited a little while before moving to Nashville,” he says. “Not only am a better writer and singer with a lot more performing experience, but I’ve also lived a lot more. I know what it feels like to hurt, to fall in love, to have your heart broken, and to miss someone. I’ve also learned what a country audience likes and what songs of mine they respond to the most. I’m ready.”
Tim Mcgraw
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Paul Brandt
Paul Brandt (born Paul Rennee Belobersycky July 21, 1972 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada), is a Canadian country music artist. He is the most awarded male country musician in Canadian history. Brandt's music has been used by Dave Matthews and Johnny Cash on the epic Mel Gibson We Were Soldiers soundtrack, a duet of the song written by Paul Brandt and Steve Rosen called "For You." Growing up in Airdrie, he was a pediatric RN at the time of his big break. In 1996, he made his mark on the country music charts with the single "My Heart Has a History," propelling him to international success and making him the first male Canadian Country singer to reach to the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in the US since Hank Snow, who last charted a Top 10 hit when "Hello Love" hit #1 in 1974. Brandt is married to Elizabeth Peterson, who can be seen in some of his music videos, and heard singing background on his CDs.
The first time Paul Brandt sang in front of an audience was when he sang "Amazing Grace" at his High School. He attended Crescent Heights High School. Brandt's first single, "My Heart Has a History," was a number 1 hit in Canada, as was his debut album, Calm Before the Storm. He followed up with the three hits "I Do" (which he wrote for his friend's wedding), "I Meant to Do That" and "Take It From Me." Calm Before the Storm was certified Gold by the RIAA in 1997.Brandt's second album, Outside the Frame, did not repeat the same success as Calm Before the Storm did. The album did have some hit singles, most notably "A Little in Love" and "What's Come Over You." Determined to put his stamp in Nashville, Brandt recorded his third album, That's the Truth, in 1999. It was not as warmly received as the previous two, but the songs "That's the Truth" and "The Sycamore Tree" received extensive airplay. After three albums, he released the Canada only greatest hits compilation, What I Want to Be Remembered For, in 2000.
After the greatest hits album, Brandt left Warner/Reprise records and started his own label, Brand-T Records. Small Towns and Big Dreams and This Time Around went on to win CCMA Album of the Year nods and a GMA Canada Covenant Award for the song "That's What I Love About Jesus" (2005). His last album, This Time Around, went platinum in Canada and produced the hit songs "Leavin'" and "Convoy." His latest single/video is "Alberta Bound," a tribute to the people and places of that province. Despite the song's name, it is not a remake of the classic Gordon Lightfoot track.Brandt released his latest album, Risk, in September 2007. The album features a cover of Contemporary Christian artist Nichole Nordeman's song, "Hold On." The first single for this project, "Didn't Even See The Dust," was released to country radio in May 2007. The video was filmed in Barcelona, Spain. "Dust" was one of the 20 most played country music songs of 2007 in Canada. In his home town on April 6. 2008, Paul won a Juno Award for "Risk" as Country Recording of the Year.
Paul Brandt continues to tour Canada, while playing in front of audiences in the USA occasionally.
Billy Currington
 Raised in Rincon, Ga., about 30 minutes outside of Savannah, Billy Currington notices fewer dirt roads every time he goes back. “I used to call it a small town,” he says, “but now it’s growing. It’s really rich in pine trees, so they stuck a paper plant in Rincon, which brought a lot of jobs, and people started building there. They started paving all the dirt roads and taking what I used to know as Rincon – it’s not the same place anymore.” Billy Currington’s music often recalls a time when life seemed simpler, although the singer-songwriter certainly can’t claim to have had an easy life. His mother married a man named Larry Currington when Billy was a year-and-a-half old. Through the next few years Billy experienced the turmoil that alcohol abuse can do to a family. “He’d get drunk and a little crazy,” Currington says. “He eventually died of drinking and cancer.” Nevertheless, it was Larry Currington who introduced Billy to country music. “He’d play Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, The Statler Brothers, Kenny Rogers, all those guys. I loved it, and I’d play those myself when he wasn’t around,” Currington says. “I really loved Alabama. I remember taking a radio in the bathroom and singing like I was Randy Owen. I guess I developed a strong passion for wanting to be a singer in high school. It was in the 9th or 10th grade when I got turned on to Keith Whitley. I’d buy those tapes and sing those songs just like he did. And of course, George Strait came along and I wanted to be like that, too.” The heartbreaking song and debut single, “Walk A Little Straighter,” tells the story of a child watching his father stumbling through the door and vowing not to make that same mistake when he becomes a father. Currington wrote the chorus at age 12. “I’ve always been writing. Growing up, I’d get halfway through a song, but it wouldn’t make any sense anymore, so I’d quit. I never thought, ‘I’m going to move to Nashville to be a writer.’ That was never my thing, but every year I was writing something.” As a high school junior, a classmate invited Currington to her father’s church. Struck by the church’s music – a blend of gospel and country – he complimented the preacher on the music. At the preacher’s request, Currington sang the following Sunday. Impressed with what he heard, the preacher eventually drove Currington to Nashville to audition at the Opryland USA theme park. “I didn’t make it, but that didn’t bother me, because all senior year I knew I was going back to Nashville.” After high school, Currington briefly worked at the paper plant until a run-in with his supervisor prompted him to quit on the spot. Because his car was in the shop, he called his grandmother to pick him up. “I said, ‘Come get me, I’m leaving this weekend. I’m moving out of here.’ We talked about it on the way home. I was sure I was moving to Nashville that weekend, and I did. I got my car back, loaded it up with my shirts, my stereo and my cassette tapes. I didn’t know where I was going to stay, but I knew I was gone.” His first move lasted less than a year, during which Currington worked in a local pawn shop. He returned to his grandmother’s house and joined a local country band. After eight months of playing at the Cavalier Lounge, Currington decided to give Music City another shot. In time, he found a lucrative job at a concrete company – 16 hours a day, six days a week – and playing clubs on the side. Although the money was nice for someone who quietly admits to growing up with nothing, the steady paychecks didn’t satisfy him. At the recommendation of some songwriting friends, Currington secured part-time work as a personal trainer and spent the remainder of his time writing and singing. A long-time gym client happened to wear a BMI hat to the gym one day. Currington found out that he worked at a publishing company and the client invited him to audition. A few days later, an executive at the publishing company asked him to sing a demo. Currington’s rich, country-tinged baritone brought more demo work and, the publishing company signed him as a full-time songwriter. Unfortunately, he only got one song cut, and a development deal with another record label soured. His publishing contract was not renewed. However, country singer Mark Wills had put a hold on a song Currington had co-written. Wills’ producer Carson Chamberlain bumped into Currington a few weeks later. They agreed to write together and record some demos. Chamberlain took those demos to Mercury Chairman Luke Lewis, who liked what he heard and signed him to the label. Chamberlain produced the album. Like every newcomer, Currington hopes for a long-term career, but his immediate goals have nothing to do with music. “My first goal is to build my grandma a log cabin house,” he says without hesitation. “We grew up in a trailer all our lives. That’s something she’s always wanted and could definitely not get on her own. …Wherever she wants the house, that’s where I’m going to put it.” That’s not a surprising confession from someone who values his humble beginnings. “Growing up in Georgia, the way it was then, and now living in the city, it is so different,” he says. “Our Friday night parties weren’t in somebody’s house. They were in a field somewhere with a bonfire. We had trucks with loud stereos and kegs in the back. That was life for me back then. A lot of fishing, a lot of hunting, and a lot of chasing alligators. It was more peaceful. I like the city life, too. I’ve learned to adapt to that, but I’ve got good memories of dirt roads.” |
Allan Jackson
It will come as no surprise to music fans that Alan Jackson is, himself, a traditional country music fan with a storehouse of honky-tonk classics in his repertoire. What might open a few eyes is the fact that a man who is so red hot as a songwriter today would pause in his career to tip his hat to the songs of the past.
Under the Influence finds the much-awarded Jackson kicking back to relax with his buddies in the studio. He says he did the album for fun, without heed to commerciality. Somewhat to his surprise, the executives at Arista/Nashville have embraced the project as enthusiastically as they have any of his previous works.
"The new country fans, including many of the people at Arista, weren't born when a lot of these songs were out," Jackson observes. "And even I wasn't very old when a couple of them were released."
"Originally, I just wanted to do this album for me and some of my fans who might be interested in it. I didn't set out for it to be a commercial album. I thought it would just be something interesting for Arista to put in the catalog. Now they're wanting to release singles from it and everything. I said, 'Fine with me.'"
"Pop A Top," Jackson's revival of country star Jim Ed Brown's 1967 classic, is one of the great barroom shuffles. Although Jackson was only nine years old when Brown originally made it a smash, the tune fits his baritone like a glove. George Jones first sang the romping "Revenoor Man" when Jackson was a five-year-old in kindergarten. Jones, who duetted memorably with Jackson on 1994's "A Good Year For The Roses," is also saluted on the new CD via Jackson's reworking of 1973's "Once You've Had The Best." Jones was the first of the legendary artists who heard Under the Influence.
"I ran into him the other day," the proud Jackson reports, "and he was just going on and on about it. That made me feel great, because I wanted to make this album as a kind of tribute to those artists."
"It was intimidating for me, because I was such a fan of all these records and songs and singers. When we first went into the studio, you've got that ego that says, 'Well, we've got to make this our own.' But after we worked on it, I said to [producer] Keith Stegall, 'The reason I wanted to do this was to pay respect to those artists and producers who affected me.' So we decided to play as close to what the original track sounded like as possible. I didn't want to take away from that. As far as my vocals, I didn't try to sing like 'em or not sing like 'em. I just went in there and sang."
Alan Jackson has been performing Gene Watson's "Farewell Party," Mel McDaniel's "Right In The Palm Of Your Hand" and Merle Haggard's "The Way I Am" in his live shows for years. Haggard's 1979 hit "My Own Kind Of Hat" was also dusted off by Jackson for Under the Influence. He feels close to Charley Pride, who recorded his song "Here In The Real World," so Jackson saluted him via "Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'."
When he first began to sing country music in Georgia, Alan Jackson was especially influenced by the songs of Hank Williams Jr. The rowdy superstar was quite moved by Jackson's "Midnight In Montgomery," which paid homage to Hank Williams Sr. in 1992. Now Jackson salutes Hank Jr.'s songwriting prowess in a powerfully emotional reading of "The Blues Man." Jimmy Buffett's songs were a staple of every club entertainer of the 1970s and 1980s. Jackson not only revives "Margaritaville," he harmonizes with the enduringly popular Buffett on the tune.
"I could do two albums of Haggard songs. I always sang Gene Watson stuff in my younger days. I could do a ton of Hank Jr. songs. I sang a lot of George Jones, a lot of John Conlee, George Strait and John Anderson. That's why I picked [Anderson's] 'She Just Started Liking Cheatin' Songs.' 'It Must Be Love' is a song that I used to sing with my first band, because I'm a big fan of Don Williams. I could sing a ton of his songs, too."
Alan Jackson is connected to this classic material on a deeply emotional level. In a Nashville musical climate that has practically obliterated the meaning of "country," Jackson has stood his ground as a beacon of integrity. Whether yearning and thoughtful in 1995's "Song For The Life," honky-tonk majestic in 1997's "Between The Devil And Me," rockabilly happy in 1993's "Chattahoochee" and "Mercury Blues" or swinging lightly in 1998's "Right On The Money," Alan Jackson has been a model of country class and artistic dignity.
But unlike many who carry traditional country's banner, Jackson allows his music to grow and evolve. Indeed, his songwriting seemed to gain depth and insight as each new album was created. As a composer he has been behind such contemporary-country masterpieces as "Wanted" (1990), "Dallas" (1992), "Tonight I Climbed The Wall" (1993), "Livin' On Love" (1994), "A House With No Curtains (1997), "Gone Crazy" (1998) and "Little Man" (1999).
"I just do what I like and what I feel like I do the best," he says humbly. "When 'Hee Haw' came on TV that was probably the earliest I remember being affected by real country music. My daddy watched that show religiously, every week. So I watched it, too. My daddy doesn't say much, but I remember one time when Buck Owens was playing he said, 'You ought to be one of them singers,' or something like that. I don't know why that struck me, but it did."
"When I got to be a teenager I had to survive disco in high school. I started a duo with a girl who played guitar and sang harmony. We did mostly folky-country stuff. When I was 16 or 17 I hung out with a guy who was a little older than me who played guitar. We started our first little band to play on weekends. There were hardly any clubs around the area, so we played private parties, pizza parlors and little beer joints here and there. You'd play the current stuff that was on the radio."
Under the Influence is a recollection of those innocent days in rural Georgia. And Alan Jackson's performances have recaptured all the straight-from-the-heart emotions that made these tunes hits in the first place. He reports that the recording sessions were among the most relaxing and enjoyable of his career.
In years past, fans have enthusiastically embraced Alan Jackson's revivals of oldies such as "Summertime Blues" (1994), "Tall Tall Trees" (1995) and "Who's Cheatin' Who" (1997). Now he is presenting them with a banquet feast of such performances.
"I've been wanting to do this project for years," he says. "I've had most of these in the back of my mind for a long, long time. The musicians just had a ball, so did I. There were some magical moments, where whole songs were recorded live. This album feels refreshing to me."
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Rodney Atkins
There's a reason why Rodney Atkins is about to shake things up in country music.
It's not just his voice, strong and expressive though it is. And it's not the way he seizes the spotlight and doesn't let go until he's turned another audience into believers.
The secret? He's not afraid.
Not afraid, for example, to write with absolute candor. The sly line that opens "Sing Along" will leave every guy feeling just a little sheepish, and confirm one thing that every girl suspects about men. On the other end of the scale, you won't hear many singers speak with the sentiment that's already making "Honesty” something of a classic.
More than that, this rangy native of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, isn't afraid to break down musical barriers. Throughout Rodney Atkins, his debut release for Curb, he tells the kinds of stories that come from country -- but that doesn't make him country all the way. In his aggressive performances and stadium-sized production, thundering drums and slashing guitars duke it out with fiddles and steel guitars. You can't pigeonhole the sound -- but you can't ignore it either.
For Atkins, it's all about mixing the strengths of two great traditions. "What I love about rock is that it sounds so good," he insists. "I still remember the first time I heard a Def Leppard record years ago; it sounded incredible. The only problem is that half the time I don't know what they're singing about. On my record I'm putting the two together: I'm singing about things that are real to me, but I'm giving you something that will sound great on your stereo -- not just compared to country acts, but to anything you want to hear."
Big plans, which come to life big-time on Rodney Atkins. But before you listen to the new sound of country music, look back to where it was born … back to the Appalachian foothills, where a young boy grew up not knowing how lucky he was even to be alive …
"The first time I heard Rodney Atkins’ ‘Honesty’ I knew it was a very important song for the country radio format. It had everything that great country stories have!”
Phil Sweetland, New York Times Country Music and Radio Correspondent
"Cumberland Gap was a great place to grow up," Atkins says. "It's a place where we'd play guitars on the front porch, or jump in the car and go down to swim in the river. It's a place where you didn't have to lock your doors at night. Somebody from a larger city would think there's nothing to do, but to me it was wonderful."
Still, a shadow or two darkened this idyllic landscape. Atkins was an adopted child; as an infant at the Holston Methodist Home for Children in Greenville, thirty miles from his birthplace in Knoxville, he was so sick that two couples who had taken him home returned him just a few days later. A third couple adopted him as well and, even though Rodney's ailments worsened, they refused to give him up. "It never crossed their mind to take me back," is how Rodney explains it. "I was theirs."
Times were sometimes tough at the Atkins home, but his parents made sure that his start in life was easier than theirs had been. His mother had been raised in a coal mining family near a tannery camp, and his dad survived an upbringing marked by poverty and episodes of abuse. None of their deprivations rubbed off on their adopted son. In fact, years would pass before Rodney understood just how much he had inherited from them.
"About two and a half years ago, after church, we were at my sister's house for dinner," he remembers. "We're looking at family photo albums, making fun of old haircuts. In the back of one album I found this picture of my dad. He's ten years old, skinny and scrawny, barefoot. That picture stirred a conversation that day about how he grew up, and where my parents came from. I learned how he was so afraid sometimes that he would sneak out through his window and sleep in this cave he'd found nearby, then sneak back in the next morning -- when he was six years old.
"That night, after I went home, it got to me that my mom and dad were punished when they were kids, but they gave me a normal life. I carried that picture home with me, laid it on the kitchen table, and just started writing. 'I've got a picture of him, barefoot in the mud, behind his grandpa's plow and two gray mules" -- it just kind of fell out. 'My Old Man' was my way of saying thank you."
When not doing chores or playing baseball with his friends, Rodney spent time in high school with his guitar. He played, solo or with a band, at county fairs, festivals, and shopping malls, most of the time losing money on expenses. Eventually, as a psychology major at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, he started visiting Nashville, playing more gigs and writing songs. Part of his degree program required that he get field experience, which led him to work as a clinical counselor at the Woodland Residential Center.
It was, Rodney remembers, "a pretty intense job. There were gang members from Memphis in there. There were boys who had been tragically abused and gotten busted for trying to stab a blind man for his money while he was begging on the corner. Some of those boys just wanted to cry. Some wanted to pound my head into the pavement.
"Soon I realized that if some guy was ready to 'get bucked,' which means to break out of the place, my guitar could be like medicine; it could bring him down. I could sit down with a kid from the roughest part of Memphis, a sixteen-year-old who had already committed assault thirty times, and take my guitar and sing 'Fire And Rain' or 'Please Come to Boston,' and he would drop the façade of being a badass. That taught me how spiritual music can really be."
He also did odd jobs to pay his way through school. It was while driving a delivery truck that he met the woman who would become his wife. Today Rodney gives her full credit for supporting him as he pursued his musical ambitions; they even survived a recording schedule that had him in the studio the day after their wedding.
Before long word spread about the big-voiced singer whose sound drew from Aerosmith as much as Alan Jackson. Curb signed him up, and in short order Atkins was in -- and out of -- the studio, with finished tracks under his belt. It was the
opportunity he'd always hoped for… but music, like most good things, isn't to be taken lightly, and something about this project seemed a little too easy.
"After I finished it, I ran into [label president] Mike Curb," Rodney says. "He asked me how I felt about the album. I said, 'Well, it's obviously great to get to make an album, but you know, I don't feel very connected to it. What's on this CD just doesn't match what I do when I play onstage. What I'd really like to do is to just start all over.' And Mike said, 'I agree. If you want to cut twenty more sides and mix 'em all thirty times, do it.'"
He never did release that first album …
Instead, Atkins spent more than two years scouting different engineers and producers, writing and tracking down songs that told his story, and finessing a sound that slammed elements of rock and country together with more concern for making an impact than fitting anyone's preconceptions. For his engineer and co-producer he chose Mike Shipley, a celebrated genre-jumper whose credits include Green Day, Def Leppard, Devo, Cheap Trick … as well as Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and Shania Twain. The musicians selected for the project were equally responsive to Rodney's vision, all the way down to the acoustic guitar parts.
"I got Bruce Gaitsch, who co-wrote 'Sing Along' with me, to come in on the sessions," Atkins says. "He's played with Madonna and Chicago, and when I told him I wanted something like Sheryl Crow in the rhythm, he got it. 'What's Left Of Me' is all about Bruce slamming that acoustic guitar right into your face. That's how I play guitar. I'm nowhere as good as Bruce, but I beat the heck out of it onstage; when we brought that to the studio, it completely changed everything."
That kind of energy permeates Rodney Atkins. Whether importing unorthodox instruments, such as the Greek bouzouki brought in for "Someone To Share It With" and "The Man I Am Today," or deliberately bypassing A-team players to find musicians with maybe a little less reverence and a little more unpredictability, Atkins followed a unique path on this project. Against all odds, the results turn out to be accessible, even hit material, precisely because they're based on a passion for performance and a resolution to tell the truth.
"Rodney Atkins deserves to be a star! His voice, charisma and hard work have made him a powerhouse entertainer and his new Curb record (‘Honesty’) is an impressive debut.”
Crystal Caviness, United Press International
Atkins speaks quietly and maintains a deferential politeness that comes from being brought up right. Whether speaking or listening, he fixes his gaze on whomever he's with. There's a sense that no nuance escapes his attention, and that he would ever use what he learns about people to betray a confidence, or tell a lie.
Night after night, he says, signs come to him that the music on this album is already reaching people. He talks about the concert where, as he sang "Honesty," he saw a troubled couple in the audience soften toward each other, tears coming from her eyes and a kind of understanding coming into his. He remembers when a frantic fan pounded on his tour bus as it was pulling out, pleading even for a lyric sheet for that song, to give to his wife as a gesture of reconciliation. Or the many people who have thanked him for writing "My Old Man" and asked for a copy to give to their parents.
Today, though, he's talking about a song that's yet to be written, about his own first birth child, Elijah. "He's my world," Rodney says. "I was with my wife after he was born. Just as the nurse was leaving the room, she turned back and said, 'Oh, by the way. His blood type is A-Positive.' That's my blood type, and it hit me right then that he's the only blood relative I know on this planet. I just completely lost it -- I still do sometimes, when I think about it."
Has he written a song about Elijah? Rodney smiles. “I’ve come up with a few ideas but I’m still searching for that song.”
Be sure of this: A song will come, but only after it's found the same balance of eloquence, compassion, and honesty that's achieved throughout the remarkable Rodney Atkins.
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