Artists That Begin With B

Greg Bates

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, it makes sense that I would want to write and sing Country Music. I grew up listening to the legends and because of their influence, I have the rare opportunity of making music for a living. If I owe Alan Jackson, George Strait, and Dwight Yoakam for kicking off these dreams, then I also owe a lot of people who are helping me follow them. Things are really exciting these days and they are just getting started. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and check out the music. There's much more to come and I hope you'll come along for the ride!

Find Greg on the web:

Kelleigh Bannen

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:42:00 GMT

I MAKE MUSIC. IT’S WHAT I DO, AND IT’S WHO I AM. I tried to convince myself to do something practical with my life…a real job, that pays the bills. But music had a hold of me, and it wasn’t letting go. So I learned to write songs, and I learned to play them out in front of people, and eventually I learned how to do that without almost throwing up. AND PEOPLE STARTED TO LISTEN.

I WANT TO MAKE THE KIND OF MUSIC THAT FEELS GREAT WHEN YOU CRANK IT UP on your way home from work on Friday night. THE KIND THAT PLAYS IN YOUR HEAD EVEN WHEN YOU TURN IT OFF. And I want to make the kind of music that makes you lean in and think about who you are, and who you want to be. And maybe someday, some kid will fall in love with the music too because he heard my song on your radio station. SO THANK YOU. THE KINDEST THING YOU CAN DO FOR A SINGER IS LISTEN. Thank you for doing just that. It’s going to be a crazy journey. I HOPE YOU’LL COME WITH ME..

Find Kelleigh on the web:

Lee Brice

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:02:00 GMT

The rugged feel of steel guitar and fiddle, the images of growing up in a world of fields and farms, of heartbreak and hard work … You can’t miss the fact that Lee Brice is country all the way.

It’s in his voice – think of it as honey trickling through lines of melody etched in leather – and in the images it conjures, of “country girls and redneck boys” anticipating the night to come in the sunset glow of a Dairy Queen (“Sumter County”), of growing up “on the edge of a cornfield” (“Picture of Me”).

And that makes one detail in his dream seem especially surprising.

“Ten years from now,” he says, smiling at the idea, “I’d love to hear my songs on the radio – on the rap stations, not just country.”

This sounds absurd, but only until you remember what makes Lee’s debut CD, Love Like Crazy, one of the strongest debuts in any genre over these past several years. That’s when you realize that if anybody can make this happen, it’s this young man from backcountry South Carolina. His voice, his sound, even his wide-open grin are as country as they come – but his view of life is much broader than that.

Begin with his tastes in music. Ask him to name the artists who influenced him, and he’ll answer with Garth Brooks and Hank Junior, sure, but also Coldplay, John Mayer, Brian McKnight, Tom Petty, 3 Doors Down, Whitney Houston, Edwin McCain, Ray Charles … a list you might assemble by grabbing randomly at bins as you wander through the Tower closing sale.

But Brice insists that something ties all these artists together: “They’re all great, which appeals to me because I want to make every song I do as great as I can too. I’m not comparing myself to them in any way, but I want the same thing that I love in what they do: They all make music that you can believe in.”

Brice takes a big step toward his dream with his debut album. This is music that takes you to special places, from the farms that he worked as a kid through the dirt roads where he and his buddies would spin their wheels and race for the smiles of their girlfriends. He has that knack for making memories come alive that he sensed in the songs of his heroes.

The thing is, it took him a while to figure out who those heroes were. While most people his age across America were tuning in to MTV, Brice was growing up on gospel, as sung by his mother and her side of the family. His Aunt Henrietta played the piano, and through the singing she did with her sisters, Lee built his own music on the rock of the church.

“I was completely sheltered, even from country music,” he remembers, “so my first influences were those gospel singers. Man, those tenors could wail! I started to sing by imitating them.”

By age seven he was teaching himself the basics of piano on Aunt Henrietta’s old upright. Shortly after that he began writing songs; aside from church quartets and his father’s Alabama and Oak Ridge Boys albums, he had only his own imagination to mine for inspiration. By the time he’d entered high school, though, he’d assembled enough originals to perform them at the talent pageant – which he won, by the way, three years in a row.

Around that same time Lee finally became aware of other styles of music, through friends who had trouble believing he’d never heard groups like Aerosmith. “Now, I’d heard of Aerosmith,” he insists, just to set the record straight. “But that’s when I got exposed for the first time to them, to John Mayer and Dave Matthews and all that stuff. My first huge influence, though, was Garth. That had a definite effect on my writing, especially in making my lyrics more mature and my hooks stronger, although even when I was ten years old I was writing very emotional songs, songs that told stories.”

There were two loves in Lee’s life at that time: music and football. His father, a star player in high school, had passed on an offer to play for Clemson in order to marry and open shop as an electrician. Lee, not having yet met the lady of his life, picked up where Daddy left off by enrolling at Clemson and making it onto the team, long-snapping for punts and then moving to center .

But fate changed the game plan. After playing the first game of his senior year, Lee woke up one morning unable to straighten his right arm. “I’d been snapping the wrong way, 500 times a day,” he explains. “They had me in surgery the next day, took out all this cartilage, and that was the end of that.”

He could have stayed and finished his civil engineering degree; instead, Lee resolved to chase his other dream. He’d kept playing music during spare time at Clemson and had even spent spring break in Nashville, checking out the town and its possibilities. During that visit he met and performed some of his tunes for Doug Johnson, which prompted the well-established songwriter/producer to offer advice that, by his own admission, Lee’s family might not have appreciated.

“He told me, ‘Lee, I see that you love music with every bone in your body, so unless you love civil engineering as much as you love music, you need to be here. And if you do come to Nashville, I’ll stand by you from the moment you get here.”

Brice laughs at the memory of that conversation and at his decision to leave Clemson that summer and take his chances in Music City. With Johnson as his mentor, he sharpened his writing, played out at songwriter circles, and hooked up with some of the top talent in town on co-writing sessions. His partners included Bob DiPiero, Craig Wiseman, Walt Wilkins, Marv Green, and more than a dozen other heavy hitters.

When Johnson took on A&R duties at Curb, one of his first acts was to bring Brice onboard for a writing deal with Curb Music Publishing. For a year the young writer blossomed, creating songs that would be covered by a diverse group of artists, including Cowboy Crush, Keith Gattis, and, on his upcoming CD, Jason Aldean. “I was writing two and three times a day,” he remembers. “I’d go to one session at 9:30 in the morning and write until two. Then I’d go from three to six, and again from seven to ten. I just wanted to write, write, write. I did 150 songs that year, and some of them were pretty good.”

How have things changed since then? Brice grins as he answers, “I might have written 60 songs this year – but they’re 60 songs that really matter.”

They especially matter when it’s Brice delivering them. Powered by musicians hand-picked for the session, with Johnson bringing the same sensitivity and feel for the material that distinguished his productions for Clay Walker, John Michael Montgomery and Hank Jr., Lee’s albumalternately flows like a stream of memory or pounds like the tide along the Carolina shore. The songs represent the cream of Brice’s catalog, whittled down from more than 300 compositions. Taken together, they forecast years of success ahead for an artist who has the key bases, writing and performing, more than covered.

“I love what I’m hearing on the radio today,” Brice insists. “People aren’t trying to be perfect or slick anymore. It reminds me of records back in the day, when everything sounded like it was played live. I’d love it if someday people could look back on what I’m doing now too and say, ‘When Lee Brice arrived, something changed in a positive way.’”

Why look back? That day has already come … right now.

Find Lee on the web:

Laura Bell Bundy

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:04:00 GMT

There are two sides to every story, as the old adage goes, and there are certainly two sides to the story of singer-songwriter Laura Bell Bundy’s daring Mercury Records debut release, Achin’ and Shakin’. Laura Bell bypassed the tried-and-true Music Row approach usually taken on country albums and instead created a bold concept album that is essentially two separate albums within one project.

The album’s title aptly describes the project’s division: Achin’ is a collection of slow and sultry country songs and Shakin’ is a group of sassy songs that are equal parts humor, confidence and attitude. One side presents a modern-day mixture of Loretta Lynn, Minnie Pearl and Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw; the other unveils country’s answer to Norah Jones. The debut single, “Giddy On Up,” is an irresistibly upbeat and saucy kiss-off to a cheating lover, while the romantic “Drop On By” oozes sensuality as she beckons a lover to visit. Both sides pay homage to traditional country and soul music with a reinterpretation featuring modern production. “’Two records, one woman’ is my motto,” jokes Laura Bell, who penned all but one of the songs on the album.

“I have two different sides of my personality,” she explains. “I have a crazy, wild, humorous, outspoken personality, and then I have a depth that only opens up when I am alone or with one other person, and that is captured with this album. I really couldn’t do one without the other.”

“I listen to music depending upon the mood that I’m in. If I want to chill out, I will listen to certain music and almost make a playlist for it. If I am running or driving and want to hear up-paced music, I listen to different songs, so I created a two-sided album.”

It’s no surprise that Laura Bell shattered the usual industry formulas because nothing about her entertainment career has been normal. Like two of her idols Reba McEntire and Dolly Parton, she traveled the musical highway that spans from Nashville to New York’s famed Broadway.

She originated the lead role of Elle Woods in the Broadway musical Legally Blonde, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. She also originated the role of Amber Von Tussle in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Hairspray and played Glinda in the smash hit Wicked. Prior to that, she originated the role of Tina Denmark in the successful off-Broadway production Ruthless, The Musical!, for which she received the Outer-Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk nominations. (Her understudy, Britney Spears, also pursued a recording career.) Her professional career, which began at age nine, includes numerous network TV shows (Cold Case, Veronica Mars) and touring productions of Gypsy (featuring Betty Buckley) and The Sound of Music (featuring Marie Osmond). Her movie credits include Dream Girls, Jumanji, Life with Mikey and The Adventures of Huck Finn.

Her theatrical career has been a wonderful life experience that was a natural extension of her original dream of having a music career. Indeed, her time on Broadway propelled her pursuit of music, exposed her to a community of talented creative people and helped her become a better writer and performer.

After moving to New York at 18, she formed a country duo with roommate Amber Rhodes and they wrote and performed songs in various New York clubs. “In the meantime, I got Hairspray and Wicked, and honestly, that’s how I supported myself.”

“People can look at it and go, ‘You went from Broadway to doing country,’” she says. “I actually went from the country to Broadway. I’m from Kentucky and I always listened to country music. When I started writing songs, it all came out country.

“I moved to New York and my intention was to have a music career, not to do Broadway. For me, it was like I had two different baskets of eggs and one was the acting basket and the other was the music basket and the acting basket of eggs hatched first. The others were incubating, and honestly I’m glad because where I am in terms of the emotional place I am in my life and my ability to express myself is much better now that I’m a bit older. I have more life experience to talk about when I write music and I’m a better performer now that I’ve been doing it for so long. My ability to put on a good show is stronger now, and I’m more in tune with who I am.

“It wasn’t until I was on the Broadway radar that Nashville noticed me. Isn’t that ironic? My showcase was my show, in some ways.”

Born in Lexington, her father is an electrical engineer who owns a manufacturing plant and her mother manages a Victoria’s Secret. Growing up, she had two older half-sisters, and at 16 her parents divorced and later remarried, so now her extended family is like a modern-day Brady Bunch.

Her father was raised in Sheffield, Ala., which is near musical hotbed Muscle Shoals (where his friends started Muscle Shoals Sound and Fame studios), so he introduced his daughter to 1960s soul, while her mother played country music in the house and car. “When I was three or four, I distinctly remember listening to ‘Islands in the Stream’ in the car and thinking it was the best song ever written,” she says. “My mom kind of looked like Dolly Parton, so I thought Dolly Parton was my mom.”

The strongest influence, however, was her grandfather, who was a radio DJ and newscaster who had a voice that was reminiscent of Bing Crosby and introduced her to Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Pearl Bailey and Willie Nelson. “For me, being in Kentucky, the world was country music, and as I got older, I listened to country and oldies. It’s all in this album.”

At a young age she studied at the Town and Village School of Dance in Paris, KY. She landed her first professional job at age nine, requiring her to move with her mother to New York to be in Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular. A year later, she was appearing in Ruthless, which helped hone her comedy chops, and two years later began acting in movies and touring the nation with musicals.

She returned to Kentucky at age 14 so that she could have a normal high school experience. She ran track and cross country and limited her performances to school productions. “I started high school and within two months, my parents separated, which was heavy,” she says. She began writing poetry in high school that she wouldn’t show to anyone, and soon began creating melodies for her words.

After high school, she returned to New York, this time to attend New York University and run on its track team. But she landed the recurring role of Marah Lewis on The Guiding Light from 1999-2001, so her college plans were put on hold. It was during this time that she formed the country music duo with Amber. “Everything we did, our Kentucky came out. We were in the middle of New York singing country songs, which was kind of our gimmick in some way. We took it very seriously. Then we decided to do our own thing.”

After a successful run on Broadway, she moved to Nashville in the fall of 2008 and has spent 18 months doing her own thing in her own unique way. Achin’ and Shakin’ is a culmination of her experiences on and offstage combined with her musical experiences, songwriting and Southern heritage.

“Songwriting and recording is my passion; this is my love,” she says. “There’s a part of myself that has come out that I really like and it’s very important to me.”

“This is a dream,” she says of releasing her debut album. “It has been a dream since I was a kid. I think I always wanted to be an entertainer. There’s an element of that at the Grand Ole Opry, where you can be funny and also be a singer. That is what I really want, that full scope of being a true entertainer.”

Find Laura on the web:

Luke Bryan

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:13:00 GMT

Luke Bryan grew up in the very small town of Leesburg, Ga. Back home, he helped his father with his peanut and fertilizer businesses while playing sports and enjoying the great outdoors. Yet 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, 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.

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, Bryan led his own band, playing at Skinner's and various community events.

Encouraged by everyone who heard him play, Bryan planned to move to Nashville after high school graduation. Supported by his family, he was loading his car for the move when tragedy struck. His older brother Chris, Bryan's biggest supporter and one of his best friends, was killed in an auto accident the day Bryan was to leave town.

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, Bryan 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. Bryan loved the work, but a year into it, his father forced him to quit the job and move to Nashville. He arrived in Music City on Sept. 1, 2001.Within two months, he'd signed a publishing deal with a company owned by songwriter Roger Murrah. Bryan spent time honing his material, building up a catalog of songs.

His debut album, I'll Stay Me, was released by Capitol Nashville in 2007 and included "All My Friends Say" and "Country Man," which each reached the Top 10 on Billboard's country albums chart. He followed it up with 2009's Doin' My Thing, which included the Top 10 single, "Do I." The project also featured "Rain Is a Good Thing," which became Bryan's first No. 1 single in 2010, and "Someone Else Calling You Baby," which topped the chart in 2011.

Additionally, Bryan tapped into the college market with a series of EPs released to coincide with spring break -- 2009's Spring Break With All My Friends, 2010's Spring Break 2 ... Hangover Edition and 2011's Spring Break 3 ... It's a Shore Thing.

Bryan was named the Academy of Country Music's top new artist and top new solo vocalist for 2009. At the 2010 CMT Music Awards, he received the USA Weekend breakthrough video of the year award for "Do I."

Find Luke on the web:

Garth Brooks

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:22:00 GMT

Certified by the RIAA as the #1 selling solo artist in US history, Garth Brooks has sold in excess of 128 million albums. He is the only solo artist in RIAA history to have 6 albums top the 10 million mark. His most recent release The Ultimate Hits has been certified 5 x platinum. This year Garth became the first artist to put out a simultaneous edition of his latest collection for a charitable cause. November 6, 2007 saw the launch of the pink edition of The Ultimate hits available only at the Susan G Komen website. His body of work – including the groundbreaking No Fences, Ropin’ The Wind, The Hits, and Double Live – propelled country music as a genre to the front pages of newspapers worldwide and the covers of magazines, to the point where Forbes declared on its cover, “Country Conquers Rock” and featured Garth in a major music piece. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Garth Brooks is the top-selling solo artist of the 20th century.

Assessing his career, the UK’s Country Music International determined that, “Garth Brooks has taken country music further than any other performer. He has reached the widest possible audience, gained phenomenal success, yet still retained the basic ingredients of country music. There is no compromise.”

It has been said that through the 1990s Garth's only real competition was himself. He brought daring individualism and a love of music, ranging from working class blues and honky tonk to bluegrass and arena rock, to the musical table. And he had the talent to serve it up tastily. His easy-going, approachable charisma was matched only by his fearless willingness to take chances and step outside the lines. He has had an unprecedented run so far, and opened the doors for many more country artists to follow.

1996 to Today:

In March of 1996 Garth launched a record-breaking, three-year concert tour, playing 350 shows in 100 cities, selling over 5.3 million tickets. He sold out practically every show on the tour, playing multiple shows in each city and consistently breaking venue attendance records set by the likes of Elvis Presley, The Grateful Dead, Elton John, and Neil Diamond. Amusement Business called it the top country music tour of all time, and likely the biggest arena tour ever.

In December of 1996, VH1 premiered Garth Brooks: Storytellers, as part of its critically acclaimed singer/songwriter series. This intimate look into Garth and his music doubled the ratings of shows featuring rock stars including Sting, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and Melissa Etheridge.

In May 1997, Garth fulfilled a promise he’d made three years earlier to the people of Ireland. When Garth played Dublin in 1994, he formed such a connection with the country that he promised to return, and to bring cameras. And when he returned, a record-breaking 120,000 tickets were sold for Dublin’s Croke Park, May 16 – 18, 1997. (A previous sales record was held by U2, 1992.) Polls showed that one in every twenty people in Ireland wanted to attend the concerts. The resulting two-hour NBC special, Garth Brooks: Ireland and Back, first aired on March 5, 1998 and won the night in ratings with an audience of over 15.7 million.

More history was made on August 7, 1997, when Garth played a concert in Central Park and drew its largest-ever concert crowd. Garth -- Live From Central Park was the most watched and highest rated original program on HBO in 1997, beating all broadcast competition in the time period as well as three of the four networks combined. Based on HBO average ratings, Garth -- Live From Central Park was the most watched special on cable television in 1997. This phenomenal success, as well as his continuing tour, earned Garth 1997 CMA Entertainer of the Year honors and a Special Achievement Award from the ACM in 1998.

Garth appropriately titled his 1997 seventh studio album Sevens, another release that debuted at the top of Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart and Country Albums chart. But the album made history before it was even released. The debut single, "Longneck Bottle," became the only single to be added by every Radio & Records reporting station on the day of its release. "Longneck Bottle" debuted in the R&R chart at No. 10, the highest single debut in its history. Other hits included "In Another's Eyes," the duet with Trisha Yearwood which earned them a Grammy in 1998 for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, "She's Gonna Make It," "Two Pina Coladas," "You Move Me" and "Do What You Gotta Do."

In May 1998 Garth released a boxed set, The Limited Series, so named because only two million units were produced. The Limited Series contained his first six multi-platinum releases as well as a bonus track on each CD. The package became the first boxed set to debut at #1 on two charts. It topped the country charts and became the first boxed set to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart since Soundscan's inception in 1991. Buoyed by the success of Sevens, the boxed set and his tour, Garth was again named CMA Entertainer of the Year in September 1998.

Coinciding with the end of his record-breaking tour, Double Live, released in November 1998, featured 25 cuts and over 100 minutes of music. It became the best-selling live album in music history. The first single from Double Live had special meaning for Garth. "I've been looking for the right song to sing for my mother ever since I started making music," Garth said. "Somehow I could never write it myself. Then one day Benita Hill played me a song she'd written with Pam Wolfe, titled 'It's Your Song.' Benita's mother had been ill -- as had my mother. I sat down and listened to it and tears started falling. When I recorded it I almost broke down. I told Benita that the sentiment expressed in that song was what I'd wanted to say to my mother all this time and just never found the words." (Colleen Brooks, former Capitol Records recording artist and Garth's first musical mentor, died on August 6, 1999.)

A second Christmas album was released in 1999, Garth Brooks: The Magic of Christmas. The album contained new music from the TNT original film Call Me Claus, starring Whoopi Goldberg. Garth was the executive producer for the film, with Goldberg and Lisa Sanderson, Garth’s partner in Red Strokes Entertainment. Call Me Claus was the most watched cable television movie of the season and one of the two highest-rated and most-watched cable movies of the year.

On October 26, 2000, Capitol Records threw a black-tie party at the Nashville Arena for Garth – One Decade, One Artist, One Hundred Million (albums sold) – a feat unmatched by any other solo artist in history. Garth received a congratulatory letter from President Bill Clinton, and video messages from friends including Sandra Bullock, Whitney Houston and Jay Leno. Garth acknowledged that he owed Capitol one more studio album, and that he also hoped to record a duet album with longtime friend and duet partner Trisha Yearwood. However, he said, he was stopping touring, moving to Oklahoma and going into semi-retirement.

“Today I am starting a new life.” Garth said. “My children and I are together every day,” he said. “I have asked my wife to be father and mother long enough. It’s time for me to accept my responsibilities and accept the true rewards that come with being a father.” Specifically, he talked about attending his daughter Taylor’s soccer game, saying, “I realized that in that one game I had more fun than in all ten years of touring.”

In a candid interview with Billboard’s Melinda Newman, Garth announced that he and wife Sandy had decided to divorce and were concentrating on remaining “…parents even if we’re not husband and wife.”

For those who followed Garth’s life and career, the move to Oklahoma should have been unsurprising. He had often expressed the sentiments he disclosed to Oklahoma Today as early as 1993, when he said he would love to raise his children in his home state. “Just to be raised in Oklahoma puts you on the board in the game of life,” he said. “If you were raised in Oklahoma, you were raised with all you need. There’s a rightness and a good-heartedness there that’s not anywhere else.”

His final studio album for Capitol, Scarecrow was released on November 13, 2001, and debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 and Country Albums charts with first week sales of 465,523. This marked the 7th time he debuted at #1 on the Top 200 chart (more times than any other artist) and the 9th time to debut atop the Country Albums chart. It was the highest selling debut week for a country album since the release of Garth Brooks Double Live in 1998. It was also among the10 best selling country albums of 2001.

"I love the idea of the 'Scarecrow' -- a guy who is brainless, but who has a heart," Garth said of the title for his 2001 studio album. "This is the happiest record I've ever made." Like its predecessors, Scarecrow was big news. By its fourth week the album accounted for 21% of all country sales. Stellar duets on Scarecrow include "Beer Run" with George Jones and "Squeeze Me In" with Trisha Yearwood. Additional hits were “Wrapped Up in You,” "Why Ain't I Running" and "Thicker Than Blood."

Time said: "Scarecrow is a reminder that Brooks is a man with a significant gift. Like Elvis and Sinatra, Brooks isn't just a singer, but an interpreter." People addressed the retirement: "This is his best work to date. It pulses with human feeling. If this is to be the last disc from a superstar, what a way to go!"

Even though a banner headline in the Nashville Tennessean reading SAY IT AIN’T SO, GARTH was echoed across the country, Garth did return to his farm in Oklahoma. The day-to-day reality was a world away from Entertainment Weekly’s calling him one of the greatest entertainers of the second half of the 20th century in 1999, or Radio & Records naming Garth Brooks and Patsy Cline the Greatest Artists of the Century in its special issue: A Century of Country. It was a colossal leap from the 29th Annual American Music Awards in Los Angeles (2002) where he was presented with the Award of Merit, following previous winners Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Irving Berlin and Willie Nelson. But Garth happily replaced a life being chauffeured to the red carpet with a life in his pick-up truck chauffeuring his girls to their activities.

Over the course of the next few years Garth and his longtime duet partner and close friend Trisha Yearwood fell in love. In May of 2005, at the Legends in Bronze event at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, California, Garth got down on one knee and proposed to his best friend. On December 10, 2005, Garth and Trisha wed in a private ceremony in Oklahoma. Far from the celebrity spotlight, the two superstars repeated vows that included Garth’s daughters, Taylor, August and Allie.

The year 2005 had another high point for Garth when he was able to offer fans a collection of previously unreleased songs on a new CD, The Lost Sessions. In a partnership with WalMart, Garth delivered a boxed set which included a DVD, All Access, featuring live performance selections, interview segments and a photo gallery of over 150 pictures, plus Sevens, Scarecrow, Double Live and The Lost Sessions. “Good Ride Cowboy,” a Lost Sessions tribute to Garth’s friend, the late Chris LeDoux, was a runaway #1 hit, and the boxed set made WalMart sales history. A second DVD featuring music and photos from Garth’s television specials and a collection of his videos was released in November, 2006.

In 2007, after 9 years in retirement, Garth Brooks tied his own personal record for selling the highest number of tickets in any city in North America. The demand was so great that, as promised, Garth added first one more show, then another and another until obligations prevented him from adding more. This was accomplished in 1 hour and 58 minutes, with nine shows in total sold. Brooks final concert played from the brand new Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri was simulcast live to more than 300 movie theatres nationwide in association with National CineMedia’s FATHOM Events.

Garth started this year off with a bang when he performed five shows in two days – a feat believed to have never before been attempted by any artist. The tickets sold out in 59 minutes! CBS broadcasted Garth Brooks live in Los Angeles from STAPLES Center to benefit F.I.R.E. (Fire Intervention Relief Effort), a program created to help the recent fire victims and support the future of fire fighting in the state of California. All proceeds from the five concerts were donated to the Relief Effort.

Find Garth on the web:

Dierks Bentley

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:00:00 GMT

Conventional wisdom says that in the music business, once you achieve a certain threshold of success, caution should be your guide. You’ve come this far, you’re told by everyone around you. Don’t surprise your audience too much.

But trepidation will not be part of Dierks Bentley’s legacy. At every turn in his career, he’s done his own thing, whether that meant touring with jam bands, playing rock venues or recording with bluegrass all-stars on platinum country albums. Now Dierks steps forward with his most artistically daring project yet - the all-acoustic Up On The Ridge - a powerful, beautiful album steeped in the bluegrass and roots music that moved Dierks Bentley to be a country musician in the first place.

His fifth album for historic Capitol Records, Up On The Ridge is a document of an artist who’s using some well-earned freedom to write in a fresh vein and cook up collaborations with the musicians who fascinate and amaze him most in the world. It’s the way all albums should be made - built on an idea and an artist-driven vision - as opposed to formulaic packages of eleven songs with four radio singles.

Dozens of talents have contributed in some way to this project. Besides the five co-written by Dierks himself, the songs come from such varied sources as Bob Dylan, Buddy and Julie Miller, U2 and Kris Kristofferson. The monumental Kristofferson is here as a guest vocalist as well, on his own song, along with a slate of today’s best traditional country singers, including Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Jamey Johnson, Miranda Lambert, Sonya Isaacs and Chris Stapleton of the Steeldrivers. And then there are the players, recruited from the top echelons of bluegrass and acoustic music. Among them: Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers, the Del McCoury Band, the legendary Sam Bush, dobro player Rob Ickes, guitarist Bryan Sutton, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and mandolinist Ronnie McCoury.

All this energy was corralled by producer Jon Randall Stewart, a singer/writer/picker whose track record in roots and country music Dierks admires as much as anyone. He and Stewart agreed they had to avoid the trap of making a contrived-feeling “Dierks Bentley And Friends” album by creating groups and settings that would let everyone work at the top of their game. They matched songs with pickers and guest singers masterfully. They dreamed up a few crazy ideas and pulled them off. It was a genuine creative adventure made possible only by the fact that Dierks established his credibility in bluegrass circles more than a decade ago.

“This record’s not a departure for me at all,” says Dierks. “It’s really just going back and reclaiming something I feel like I do have some ownership of, which is the acoustic music scene in Nashville.”

Long before his seven chart-topping singles, headlining arena tours, prestigious industry awards or even his record deal, he was a Nashville novice on the brink of discouragement, looking for something musically nourishing and a reason to keep pushing toward a career. And then, providentially, he visited the world famous Station Inn. The humble cinder block building is the nerve center of Nashville’s unparalleled bluegrass scene, and when Dierks went there with a friend on Tuesday night in the late 90s and heard the Sidemen – the Station Inn’s weekly house band – playing hot and fast, it was a revelation. He’d heard only a little bluegrass before and halfway thought of it as “old folks’ music,” but that changed with a few quickened heartbeats. These players were his own age, and the music had both a heart and an edge. Perhaps most remarkably, it came with a big wide front door. When Dierks, a complete newcomer to the scene, approached the musicians with questions and obvious fascination, they were more than willing to share insight into their music.

Dierks remembers the next few years as an inspiring and important time. “They invited me over to their houses for moonshine and picking parties and pot lucks,” he says. “And they knew more about country music and Nashville and acoustic music than anyone on Music Row. Without that whole bluegrass community taking me in and helping me find my foundation, I would have had no place to start from.”

Bentley honed his own style playing all kinds of country music in the clubs and honky-tonks of Nashville’s Lower Broadway and Second Avenue, mixing bluegrass with classic standards, obscure covers he found digging through old albums and an increasing number of his own songs. And when he landed his record deal with Capitol, he was happily surprised to find support for keeping his ties to bluegrass. Not only did many of his singles and album tracks feature prominent acoustic instruments, especially dobro, each of his albums included a certified bluegrass song with the McCourys or The Grascals, a band largely comprised of the guys Dierks had met in those early Sidemen shows.

Throughout his career on Capitol, as Dierks built one of the most loyal, connected fan bases in modern day country music, the press recognized that he was pulling off something extraordinary. His music was grounded in tradition but with enough relatability to work on the radio. No Depression magazine, the bible of the Americana movement, praised him for being a bridge between the roots world and the commercial mainstream. His fans began asking with some regularity when he was going to make a bluegrass album.

Then last year, after a grueling tour, Dierks approached the fall and winter feeling the need to throw out the rule book and indulge in the sounds that brought him to the show. The song that set the tone for the project and gave it its title was inspired by some time spent on an actual ridge – a plot of land Dierks bought in rural Williamson County with no buildings except an old barn and a commanding view of hills, fields and trees. Dierks finally arranged a long-sought writing session with Angelo, a lyrical and sonic wizard who’d come to Dierks’ attention working with Kim Richey but who’d gone on to rock production stardom with the Kings of Leon. A conversation about the good time possibilities of hanging out on the ridge matched with Angelo’s spooky, mantra-like guitar riff, and the gritty title track was born.

From there, the partnership with Jon Randall led to a series of sessions where a complete album took shape. Mountains were moved to get busy artists together in the relaxed setting of Gary Paczosa’s studio. Dierks arranged to write and record with one of his heroes, Tim O’Brien, producing a darkly comic and swinging country/grass classic, “You’re Dead To Me.” Kristofferson’s song “From The Bottle to the Bottom” was unknown to Bentley, a student of great country songs, until it was suggested by Jon Randall. And they pulled together two of the biggest stars of traditional country music – Jamey Johnson and Miranda Lambert – for a three-way harmony blowout on the Verlon Thompson/Suzi Ragsdale song “Bad Angel.”

The production team decamped at one point for Brooklyn, New York, where Dierks spent a magical three days recording with the Punch Brothers, arguably the most innovative and technically complete pickers in acoustic music. He matched voices beautifully on Bob Dylan’s rippling and subversive “Senor.” And he and Stewart pulled off the coup of the album – a searing vocal duet with Del McCoury on U2’s “Pride (In The Name of Love)” over the Punch Brothers exquisitely arranged soundscape – one of the great acts of group interpretation of a standard you’ll ever hear.

U2 and Kristofferson notwithstanding, some of the very strongest songs on the album are by Dierks. He and Jon Randall came up with “Draw Me A Map,” with its seductive dobro-thick melodic theme and its longing lyrics. Their version of “Rovin’ Gambler” is the hardest, fastest bluegrass number on the album. And they wrap the project with the moving “Down In The Mine,” which adds another gem to the historic catalog of bluegrass mining ballads.

Throughout this journey of 12 tracks, Dierks’s voice sounds liberated and authentically connected to the songs. Its grainy honesty is captured in all its nuance by the recording genius of Paczosa, who is widely regarded as the top acoustic engineer of this era. “This album is a brilliant piece of work,” says Paczosa. “And he didn’t do it for any other reason than this was the record that was his heart. And even though the bulk of the record is pretty straight ahead bluegrass instrumentation, there are plenty of other elements that, to me, tie this record to his past records. I know his intent, first and foremost was to make a record that he could be proud of.”

Mission accomplished.

Find Dierks on the web

Clint Black

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:50:00 GMT

Prolific singer-songwriter Clint Black has long been heralded as one of Country music’s brightest stars. His many talents have taken him even further, as Black has transcended genres to become one of the most successful artists in all the music industry. To date, Black has written, recorded and released more than 100 songs, a benchmark in any artist’s career. An astounding one-third of these songs eligible for major single release also achieved hit song status at Country radio, while more than 20 million of his albums have been sold worldwide. While it’s well-known that Black is an accomplished singer and guitarist, people may be surprised to learn that he is also proficient on drums and harmonica.

Black’s continued success can be attributed in part to his deep sense of Country music history, and his humble gratitude in being an important part of it. The 1989 debut of his critically acclaimed fan favorite, the Triple Platinum Killin’ Time, marked a shift in the industry, with a return to the more traditional sounds of the genre. CMT lists this album as one of the 100 Greatest Albums in Country Music.

Released while Black was still an unknown Texas-based artist and writer, Killin’ Time boasted five #1 hits – unprecedented from a debut album in any genre – and won Black a collection of awards that included: Country Music Association Horizon Award, Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year, American Music Awards Favorite New Male Country Artist, Academy of Country Music Best New Male Vocalist, Academy of Country Music Best Male Vocalist, Academy of Country Music Album of the Year (Killin’ Time), and Academy of Country Music Single of the Year (“A Better Man”).

For Black, Killin’ Time was only the beginning. Put Yourself in My Shoes followed in 1990, and quickly went Triple Platinum. Since then, Black has had nearly two dozen #1 hit singles, and almost as many Top 5 and Top 10 hits – all of them his original compositions, which is itself a notable rarity in popular music. The overall number of his awards, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, surpasses the number of his hit records, while he has performed for a staggering number of dedicated music fans in concerts through the years.

With such a long and productive career, Black still keeps his output as fresh now as when he was a hungry, up-and-coming artist. When he felt that his music was in danger of becoming a bit repetitive in the late ‘90s, Black took a brave risk and shook things up by leaving his label of more than a decade, and took a much-needed break to reevaluate where he wanted to take his career next. At that time, he and wife Lisa Hartman Black decided to start a family, and the birth of daughter Lily Pearl subsequently gave Black a new perspective and vigor that affected not only his personal life, but his professional and creative sides as well.

Clearly, Black’s devotion to family was the best thing for his career. In 2003, he boldly founded Equity Music Group, an especially artist-friendly record company that became home to his own recordings, as well as those of other like-minded artists. It was his company that launched Little Big Town’s career with their Platinum-selling album, The Road to Here. Black’s highly anticipated debut album for the label, Spend My Time, received great critical acclaim, and the label went on to earn Billboard’s #2 Independent Imprint of the Year and #4 Independent Label of the Year across all genres in 2006.

Without a doubt, Clint Black has earned his place as one of the most successful artists in the history of American music; but he has not stopped there. Black memorably flexed his acting chops with a cameo in 1994’s Maverick (alongside Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster), as well as with roles in films such as 2000’s Going Home (with Jason Robards) and the starring role in 1998’s Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack. Flicka 2 (with Patrick Warburton) – will be released in May 2010. Black has also performed on TV shows including The Larry Sanders Show, Las Vegas, King of the Hill and many others.

In addition to his established business ventures and various charity foundation efforts, Black branched out even further with an appearance on Donald Trump’s hit reality series Celebrity Apprentice. As a result of the friendship on the show between Black and fellow contestant and Olympic Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton, the teammates are working to secure a total of one million dollars in matching fund donations for the International Rett Syndrome Foundation (IRSF). Black currently serves as Honorary Chair for the IRSF’s “Research to Reality: Funding Progress” campaign, which helps to accelerate treatments and research to find a cure for the developmental disorder.

Find Clint on the web:

Brooks & Dunn

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:40:00 GMT

About Kix Brooks:

Kix Brooks began performing and writing songs at age 12 in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. He performed in clubs and other venues throughout high school and college. Eventually he landed in Nashville, where he joined Tree Publishing Company and had songs cut by artists such as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John Conlee, and Highway 101. In 1990 Brooks teamed with Ronnie Dunn to form Brooks & Dunn, who are the highest selling duo in the history of country music. They have sold more than 30 million records, have had 23 #1 hits, and have won over 80 major industry awards. Brooks & Dunn currently hold the record for number of awards won at both the ACM and the CMA Awards and continue to be a driving force in the music industry. Brooks is also the host of “American Country Countdown” which is an internationally syndicated radio program that counts down the top 40 country songs of the previous week.

Brooks served as President, in 2004, and Chairman, in 2005, of the Country Music Association (CMA). He remains an active board member of the CMA and serves as part of the Blue Ribbon Committee. The Blue Ribbon Committee is a select group of professionals including the mayor, chosen to bring the city of Nashville and the Music Industry closer together. Brooks is also on the boards of Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau. He is the local spokesperson for Monroe Harding Children’s Home and has recently been appointed as a director for 1st American Bank. Brooks has been married to his wife Barbara for 26 years and they have two children Molly, 21, and Eric,18.

About Ronnie Dunn:

Ronnie Dunn was born in Coleman, Texas to a hard living, truck driving, country music singing father and a conservative church going mother. Dunn navigated a winding road that led him from West Texas to New Mexico, Arkansas and Oklahoma and through thirteen schools in twelve years.

"Music was about the only constant in life", says Dunn.

In 1990, Dunn moved from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Nashville and was
introduced by Arista Records label head, Tim Dubois, to Kix Brooks.
They formed a partnership that has catapulted them into the hearts and
souls of country music fans everywhere.

Since their initial pairing in 1990, Brooks & Dunn have been at the top of the country music singles charts 23 times with songs like Brand New Man, Boot Scootin Boogie, You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone, My Maria, Only In America, and Red Dirt Road. They are the industry’s most award winning duo and have been named “Entertainers of the Year” four times. They have gathered 20 Country Music Association Awards and 26 Academy of Country Music Awards; more than any other artist in CMA and ACM history, recently surpassing the legendary Merle Haggard in 2005. With their exceedingly popular tours and more than 30 million records sold Brooks & Dunn continue to dominate the music industry.

Ronnie has twice been named the BMI Country Songwriter of the year. He was the Billboard Magazine country songwriter of the year in 1996. He was inducted into the Arkansas Music Hall of Fame in 2005. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2006. He has received 23 BMI Million Airplay Awards for songs written that have attained one million, or more radio airplay status. Dunn was voted the Gospel Songwriter of the Year by the Gospel Music Association, in 2006 for his writing of the song, Believe.

He has been married to his wife, Janine for 17 years and has three children.

Find Brooks & Dunn on the web:

Big & Rich

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:28:00 GMT

When it comes to Big & Rich, there’s no need for a typical bio. You can get a telling of their early career—separate and together--from the folks at Warner Bros. Nashville, or by Googling the dynamic duo. Their back story hasn’t changed, so why retell it?

I’m more interested in the biography of the choices they’ve made as Big & Rich. In their mixing of traditional country sounds with hip-hop, rock, and the occasional Native American yell. Their employment, in their Muzik Mafia troupe, of a painter who works on a canvas during B&R shows, and of a former Foot Locker salesman, called Cowboy Troy, who’s become the most prominent black country performer since Charley Pride—with one major difference. Troy raps. In Spanish, sometimes. As does Big Kenny, doing a little “hick-hop.” And then there’re their social messages, including “Love Everybody,” flashing on big screens behind them, and emblazoned on the back of Big Kenny’s guitar.

I’m curious, too, about the whole Muzik Mafia thing. That was the informal jam session they set up in Nashville, a town notoriously not interested in looseness—at least not when it comes to the music industry. Kenny Alphin and John Rich grew it into a scene and, ultimately, into a stable of talent, with several of the participants joining them in the leap onto the radio, the charts, and concert stages. Gretchen Wilson, anybody?

And so, one recent morning in Beverly Hills, in a hotel suite that could only be described as big and rich, and with two video cameras rolling, I asked the guys about their place in life and music. That place just happens to be the title of their third CD: Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace.

John looked natty in black and blue—black hat and sport jacket; blue shirt and jeans. Kenny was all over the place, with patchy, fashionably tattered jacket and pants, along with his trademark top hat. This one was smaller than the usual, however. “It’s medium,” he said, “but it should be extra large, because my cranium is constantly pulsing with imagination and creativity welling up in it. It’s about to explode.”

As John moved, ever so slightly, away from Kenny, I asked why the call sheet for the session requested: “Please Not Sloppy.” Rich cast an eye at the publicist from Warner Bros. Nashville. “She might’ve meant ‘sloppy drunk,’” he said.
“I think the beauty of the real us shines through,” said Kenny, “no matter what our bodies are clothed in.”

Lest you think that Big & Rich live only to jest, the new album will set you straight. Sure, there’s some of the “I throw Benjis out the window all day” bravado of their first two disks, but there’s far more grace—in words and music—than hell-raising.

The album’s theme, Kenny said, came from a conversation he had with a friend, “and the realization that between raising hell and ‘Amazing Grace’ is that fine line that we’re walking on all the time, trying to live life to its fullest and at the same time knowing that every day of our lives is a blessing. And I feel like, to those given much, much is expected. We’ve gotta reach out there and help those that need our help right now.”

Spoken like the son of a preacher man. Well, actually, it was John, who comes out of Texas and Tennessee, whose father was a preacher—a guitar-playing preacher, at that. But Kenny’s mother was the pianist at their church in Virginia. Both Big & Rich had spiritual grounding; both did a lot of Sunday singing.

And both credit their fathers for their love-everybody, help-thy-fellow-artist values.

“Everything that’s happened in my life has guided me to be the person I try to be now,” says Kenny. “My father’s one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. He’s a saint by all means, always trying to help his neighbor, anybody that he could.” As a musician, Kenny struggled, to the tune of huge credit card debts. But, he says, he continued to believe, “no matter what, that you’re gonna come out the other end and climb a top of a mountain. I’ve definitely felt that heartache enough times that it makes me truly compassionate.”

As a kid in Amarillo, John experienced poverty. He and three sibling lived with their parents in a trailer, and they went to the food bank for help. Still, he recalls, “I watched my dad take guys in off the street. He didn’t have anything to help anybody with, but he’d do whatever he could do to help people out.”

Kenny and John must’ve had heart transfer operations somewhere along the way. Although they began their Muzik Mafia jams before they broke through, they now use their power to help fellow artists. “When you see somebody who’s got the goods, you want for them not have to go through the same mistakes we had to go through,” says Kenny. John adds: “We all share our momentum and our contacts. That’s why we’re being rewarded so greatly, is because we’ve been so selfless with it.”

Flash back to Nashville, circa 1998. Suffice to say, both John and Kenny are struggling. Join the club. John’s been fired from the soft-country band, Lonestar, and is pitching songs left and right. Kenny, who’s anything but soft, is playing clubs all over town, drawing female admirers. One of them was dating John Rich.

“She wanted to go see him; her girlfriends were all going to see him, they were all in love with this guy Big Kenny, and I went OK, I’ll go check him out. He’s up there in all his bigness, doing country, rock and roll, and…Queen. It was very odd music, but it was good stuff.” After the show, a mutual friend introduced them. “She said the two of you should get together and write a song. There’s no telling what you all will end up writin’ because you’re so different.” Rich agreed to give it a shot. “It might be a complete fiasco,” he thought, “but I hadn’t seen anybody else do the kind of music he was doing; it interested me enough on a writing level to go, ‘OK, let’s see.’”

Rich didn’t know it then, but His Bigness was relatively new to professional music. He was building homes in Virginia when, one beer-soaked night, he agreed to go on stage at a pub and sing a song—the only song whose lyrics he knew: “Peaceful Easy Feeling” by the Eagles. Soon after, he bought a guitar, taught himself to play, and moved to Nashville. “I was listening to a lot of country music; it was the dominant music on construction sites and in farm shops. But a lot of those same people love rock and roll. I grew up as a real appreciator of all shapes and forms.”

So there you go. Kenny’s “bigness” referred to his range of musical interests. John Rich appreciated that range, and, after they began writing, and in 2001, while they were going nowhere slow with their respective careers, hit on the idea of an informal jam session on Tuesday nights, dubbed, for no good reason, “Muzik Mafia.”

“We realized that there was this whole bunch of us that were making all different kinds of music in different joints in town,” said Kenny. “We were all writing songs together, no matter what kind of music we were predominantly making, and we wanted to play them more often. So we decided, why don’t we get together one night a week and find us some little place where we can make music and not have to clean up afterwards?”

They got a club—The Pub o’ Love, capacity maybe 75—and never promoted the jams to the general public. But they caught on quick. “Within a few months they had to bust out the back wall. Other artists would show up. It was acoustic driven; we’d have percussionists come and play boxes or shakers. It was like sitting in a living room, learning from each other.” Among the students was a bartender, Gretchen Wilson, who’d take a night off to be there for the party, and “Cowboy Troy,” who’d drive down as often as he could from his shoe sales job in Dallas.

The Muzik Mafia has grown into a mini-empire. “The thing is, we still do Mafia jams in Nashville on Tuesday nights when we’re there,” said Rich. “There’s still no cover; we still don’t advertise it, but we’ll pull the tour bus out in front. It gets a little wilder. We’ve had everyone from Bon Jovi, Jewel, and Stone Temple Pilots, to hard-core country acts drop by. We’re still together. When you’re selling millions of records, when you’ve got a Tuesday night off, why aren’t you home? We still like to jam.”

Big & Rich made a lot of noise by incorporating rock and rap on their first albums. This time around, there’s soul and reggae, by way of John Legend, who does a cameo on “Eternity,” and Wyclef Jean. Rich went to see Jean, strictly as a fan, at the House of Blues in Los Angeles and wound up being pulled onto the stage. The crowd had no idea who Big & Rich were, he says, but Jean told them, “There are no boundaries. They tell us there are boundaries just so we don’t run past them.” Then, John said, “He starts free-styling about Nashville and Charlie Daniels and us, and how it’s all the same.”

Wyclef then indicated to John: “Your turn.” Rich froze for a moment, and then, over the reggae beat, went into “Folsom Prison Blues,” followed by “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy.” Suddenly, the House of Blues audience was his.

“The audience is not segregated,” says Rich. “The only segregation is happening at the creative level and on the marketing level of music. The audience is listening to everything, so why can’t a John Legend audience buy a Big & Rich album, and why can’t a Big & Rich audience buy a John Legend album? Probably because they’re not even allowed to hear it.”

While Big & Rich appreciate any radio airplay they can get, they’re also proactive in other media, appearing on shows ranging from Nashville Star to Dancing With the Stars; issuing special-edition DVDs, and, now, publishing a book, alongside the new album.

Entitled Big & Rich: All Access, and including—see?—a DVD, the book offers “a real behind-the-scenes look at our lives since we met,” said Kenny. “How yin and yang came together and went ‘BANG!’” As in the line from “Comin’ to Your City,” the title tune of their last album: “If you want a little bang in your yin yang; if you want a little zing in your zang zang…come along!”

Not that Big & Rich are repeating themselves. Last time out, they had Kris Kristofferson introducing a song. This time, they have President Harry S Truman opening the album with a call for unity, from a speech he delivered to farmers in 1935. They do AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” with a pronounced twang. They’ve got John Legend and Wyclef Jean crooning and riffing. They’ve revved up their message, from “Prejudice should not exist in music” to “Prejudice should not exist anywhere on earth.”

And if, indeed, Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace has Big & Rich leaning towards Grace, that’s the idea, to take you to a “zone,” as Kenny would say. “Here’s a feeling we’re going to stay in, and thoughts we’re gonna express in a certain style for awhile. And then we’re gonna switch gears and rock your balls off.”

Jeez, Kenny. You’re the loving son of a church pianist; the self-proclaimed “Universal Minister of Love.” And the video cameras are still running. Take two:

“We’ll do it like you’re listening to an album. Here’s the first side; it’s got this mood to it. Then you flip it over, and it’s got this mood to it. And we leave it on a happy note. We love our country, and we love it loud.”

That’s a rap. And that’s a wrap.

Find Big & Rich on the web: