The Garth Factor

by Patsi Bale Cox

  WHO IN THE HELL IS GARTH BROOKS?

  Before he could even check out the driver, the light changed and the other car changed lanes, disappearing into traffic.

  Garth sat there for a moment, laughing. He knew just how they felt. He’d felt much the same way when all the hoopla started.

  GARTH LEARNED ABOUT HIS historic entry onto Billboard’s Top 200 chart while he was filming a show at Reunion Arena in Dallas. The idea began with a long-form video in mind, and ended up as an NBC special. By the summer of 1991 it was obvious to Capitol that Garth’s show deserved to be seen by a wider audience. Joe Mansfield especially had believed that event marketing, increasing visibility in as big a way as possible, would be particularly effective for Garth.

  “Anyone who had ever seen Garth in concert knew that his show was fueling those CD sales figures,” Mansfield said. “We wanted to take advantage of what was a huge asset in his career path, his ability to entertain.”

  Garth wasn’t sure. “I loved the idea,” he said later. “Loved it! I mean, to get the chance to put our show on TV? Who wouldn’t? But, and it was a very big ‘but,’ it was a scary idea to think people would tune in. On the other hand, I knew that even though I wasn’t the greatest singer in the world or the best songwriter—somehow I’d figured out how to entertain people. I guess I’d been working on that one since I was a little kid singing for the family in Yukon, Oklahoma.”

  Once the decision to film a show was made, the question was asked. Where? The answer, as far as Garth was concerned: Texas. “That crowd steals the show. If you’ve ever been to one of our shows you know there are times I can walk offstage and the audience would never know it. They’re raising hell, having fun—they’re crazy.”

  “Dallas was the first city to really embrace what Garth was doing,” Joe Harris explained. “His whole deal in concert is to feed off the energy of the crowd, and Dallas audiences were always the most excited.”

  The Reunion Arena show sold out eighteen thousand seats in forty-five minutes.

  Some special guests were invited to witness the show: NBC programming brass. Country veteran Gene Weed, VP of Dick Clark Enterprises, had been pushing the network to do such a show for some time. But as Joe Mansfield told Video Insider’s Barry Gutman, “What it took was for them to see those live concerts.”

  Rick Ludwin, NBC’s senior VP for specials, variety programming and late night, who attended the Dallas concert with a group of network executives, said, “I have never heard an audience react the way this audience reacted to Garth. It was like Elvis was back. And as I looked around at the crowd, there were teenagers as well as twenty-, thirty-, forty-, fifty-, and even sixty-year-olds!”

  Ludwin was so impressed that he went back to L.A. and hired Gene Weed to put together a series called Hot Country Nights, a show he vowed would represent the new country attitude—one that did not include hay bales, corncob pipes, or blacked-out teeth.

  Joe Mansfield had seen that reaction coming. While This Is Garth Brooks was in the planning stages, he described the event as a win-win for everyone concerned. “This will introduce Garth’s concert to those fans who haven’t seen the show yet. By the time it airs in 1992, Ropin’ the Wind will have been out around six months, and I’m betting that the special causes a spike in sales on all three of the albums. Beyond what it does for Garth, it will show the excitement that country music can summon. I think it’ll help put to rest that old idea that we are the stepchild of the music industry.”

  This Is Garth Brooks aired on January 17, 1992, and gave NBC its best Friday night in more than two years. The show received a 17.3 rating, and a 28 share. (1 rating point represents 959,000 households and a “share” is the percentage of sets tuned in during a given period.) It was the number 9 show in the Nielsen ratings for the week. At the second airing, This Is Garth Brooks remained powerful, receiving a 6.9 rating and a 12 share.

  There was one controversy that for a time threatened to overshadow the success of the special: the infamous guitar-smashing spectacle. To show country’s wild side, Garth decided to mimic rock’s tendency to smash guitars onstage. Nervous about ruining good instruments, Garth ordered two “seconds” for he and Ty England to break. But as the hours went by and no delivery was made Garth felt backed against the wall. He weighed his desire for a scene-stealer against two busted guitars and finally went ahead with the plan. In hindsight, Garth said his biggest regret was that he hadn’t secured the flawed guitars well in advance.

  The success of This Is Garth Brooks reminded music marketers that network television could sell records, and showed advertisers that country was a good investment. And as the special proved: visibility is everything.

  On January 30, 1992, Chuck Philips, the Los Angeles Times music business analyst, explained what happened when This Is Garth Brooks aired: The first tangible result of the special involved record sales, with Ropin’ the Wind again taking the number 1 spot in Billboard,No Fences moving back up to number 2, and Garth Brooks to number 10 on the Top 200 chart. This meant that Garth became the first country artist ever to have three albums in the pop Top 10 during the same week. Statistics like that immediately spurred new interest in prime-time television as a music marketing avenue, much like when Elvis Presley had been spring-boarded to superstardom on shows like Ed Sullivan’s. Philips’s article quoted Mike Fine, CEO of SoundScan, the New York research firm that provides sales data for Billboard: “Recent sales statistics prove that record manufacturers can successfully market all kinds of music to a wide variety of audiences without the help of Top 40 radio.”

  Philips also interviewed Paul Schulman, whose firm analyzed and placed about $175 million a year’s worth of advertising on the television networks. “Garth got ratings that astounded everyone,” Schulman said. “When advertisers and networks see numbers like he pulled in you can bet they pay attention.”

  By 1992 country showed a 76 percent increase in revenue over the base year of 1990, the Country Music Association announced. The largest area of growth was in record sales, from $6.6 million in 1990 to $1.4 billion in 1992, and concert revenues from $64 million in 1990 to $126 million in 1992. Additionally, in a sampling of the top one hundred country radio stations, advertising revenues grew from $5.5 million in 1990 to $6.6 million in 1992. On October 3, 1992, Billboard reported that Garth was having a “Garthgantuan” effect on the entertainment industry. “Moderate estimates indicate that Brooks has generated more than a half-billion dollars for the industry, from concerts to merchandise, and from record and video sales to music publishing and songwriting.”

  EntertainmentWeekly named Garth one of the top fifty most influential people in the entertainment industry, after he had been signed to a record label less than four years. Garth explained his feelings to Country Fever’s Frank Barron: “I’ve gotta be honest. I’m having the time of my life. When you stand up there next to the people you were with in an old musty basement, just dreaming, and didn’t have a pot to pee in, really, and then sitting there and thinking—‘My God, it’s happening!’ ”

  Although he was quick in pointing to the strong careers of artists like George Strait, Randy Travis, and Ricky Skaggs, many of country’s other top acts started looking like also-rans. Most artists just understood that it was the way of the business when “the next big thing comes along.” Some in the business resented the seemingly overnight success. But Garth had strong friendships among male artists, notably Steve Wariner and Ricky Skaggs. L.A. Times powerhouse music voice Robert Hilburn pronounced, “Garth Brooks is so far ahead of every other male singer in country music sales and concert vitality that’s he’s going to have to stumble badly for anyone to soon take away his crown.”

  Country music reigned and Garth Brooks ruled the realm. The national press didn’t just jump, it dove headfirst into the tank for Garth. But as Johnny Cash once said, “The higher you climb up the ladder, the bigger the target on your butt.”

  Garth learned that lesson soon enough.


  Jory Farr wrote a piece in the Riverside, California, Press Enterprise titled “The Accelerating Decline of Rock ’n’ Roll”: “Is rock ’n’ roll dead? Not yet. But in 1992 there were signs that music as we know it should be put on the endangered species list as country, long considered novelty or hillbilly music, soundly kicked its butt at every turn. And it wasn’t just Garth Brooks… albums by everyone from Trisha Yearwood to Travis Tritt turned platinum with ease.”

  The Orange County Register’s Gene Harbrecht wrote, “For a handful of music history’s superstars, there comes a point when their performances transcend the label of concert and become events. Elvis, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson are a few examples. It’s uncertain exactly when country music messiah Garth Brooks crossed that threshold, but he most certainly has.”

  The Seattle Times said, “Brooks has almost single-handedly boosted country music to its greatest level of popularity.” Entertainment Weekly pronounced Garth “the most popular singer in America.” He appeared on the covers of Time, the Saturday Evening Post, People, and Entertainment Weekly.

  Forbes led with the cover line, “Led Zeppelin Meets Roy Rogers—Country Conquers Rock.”

  Time described a Garth Brooks concert as “part Jolson and part Jagger… more of the Fillmore than the Opry, and the audience hollers for him, feasts on him, lets itself go nuts with him.” Album Network noted, “Garth Brooks isn’t just a superstar country artist anymore, he’s rewritten music history.”

  Well now, it was one thing for Garth to be lauded for setting new standards of success in country, but talk of rewriting music history was unacceptable. And as if it hadn’t been bad enough to say that country had conquered rock, Forbes heaved heavy metal and rap into the mix. Here’s what the magazine reported:

  “This phenomenon suggests that American popular culture is taking a new, healthier direction. At [Dallas country dance club] Denim and Diamonds, the clientele is of mixed ages, with a preponderance of the young, but ranging from 21 to 60 and up. The scene is less solipsistic and drug oriented. Dancing becomes a social activity again, with people dancing with each other rather than wrapped in their own private ecstasy. The sexual electricity is there, but it isn’t vulgar or violent.”

  Then the Forbes article, with an assist from Jimmy Bowen, plunged a knife straight in metal’s and rap’s backs:

  “One thing country music is all about is everyday life and everyday experience. Rapper Ice Cube writes about burning down Korean grocery stores. The Geto Boys talk about a horrifically violent rape. ‘If you don’t live in the inner city, you can’t relate to those lyrics,’ says Bowen. ‘There are millions of other younger Americans who are disenfranchised. They don’t like dancing to heavy metal music. They’ve been poking around and they found Garth Brooks.’ What they found is an entertainer they can relate to.”

  The British country bible Country Music People added to the conquers-rock meme: “[Brooks’s] success has even reached the pages of the British rock press, who usually reserve their country coverage for rebels from California. For them, Garth is the man who toppled Guns N’ Roses, destroying a heavy metal hype that had been eighteen months or more in the making. The metal merchants had staged a cunning publicity campaign for their latest albums, delaying the release over and over again until excitement was (supposedly) at fever pitch. Sure enough, their double-pronged assault on the US album charts stole the top two positions—only to be toppled a fortnight later by the singer who had already made history by becoming the first country artist to debut an album at #1 in the States [Billboard Top 200]. And there Garth stayed for another two months with Ropin’ the Wind racking up five million sales along the way.”

  At MTV’s awards show, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich echoed the bumper sticker: “Who the hell is Garth Brooks?” Head Candy lead vocalist Mike Sangster questioned Garth’s authenticity, saying that he was to country what Skid Row was to metal. USA Today pop critic Edna Gunderson believed Garth was stealing the spotlight from artists like Steve Earle, never mind that Steve had moved on from country several years earlier. Gunderson wrote, “If some semblance of taste is to be restored to mainstream pop, this hip hillbilly’s reign must end.”

  USA Today’s country critic, David Zimmerman, fired back, saying that “other forms of music are so poor and mindless that Brooks was sucked into the vacuum.”

  But perhaps the best explanation came from Billboard country editor and music historian Edward Morris:

  “What most rock critics either don’t understand or won’t accept as valid are the traditions of civility and self-effacement in country music. Rock seems to revel in ‘rawness’ and posturing, usually mistaking them for wisdom. Country prefers a more measured and restrained approach, even when the subjects are provocative or violent. The elements in Brooks’ songs that Gunderson describes as ‘safe’ and ‘approachable’ are absolute virtues to people who prefer not to be lectured to or shouted at. In country music, the singer is always subservient to the song. Brooks knows that and has benefited greatly from that knowledge. It is too bad that he is insufficiently barbaric for Gunderson’s tastes. The rest of us can handle his sensibilities.”

  In public, Garth often made light of the criticism, facing it with self-deprecating humor. As he told Playboy, “Three years ago would you have thought that the largest selling artist in the ’90s would be going bald and have an eating problem and be doing fiddles and steel guitar?”

  But he admitted to a friend, “I am getting real sick of seeing myself on magazine covers. And if I am sick of me, then I have to figure somebody else is too.”

  Considering his admiration for the sales plans put together by Capitol’s Mansfield, Garth was astonished to read that his sales were the result of his own marketing genius. He told Country Song Roundup, “I read a magazine article once, and I swear to you, I didn’t know who they were talking about. It had my picture on it. It had my name on it. But this guy sounded like somebody from outer space. It was the furthest thing from me that could possibly be. This guy sounded like some kind of Einstein of country music, and it was like—‘Get a grip!’ ”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Why should rock ’n’ roll get all the glory?

  The guy wearing a baseball cap and sweats wandering around an empty Texas Stadium would have looked confused to the casual observer. He sat in one section for a time, then moved to another, and yet another. He sprinted up to the Crown Suites, Texas Stadium’s highest point. Then, astonishingly, he crawled up onto the stadium’s catwalk.

  What Garth was doing was putting himself in the position of his potential audience. As a high school and college student, he’d attended plenty of stadium and arena rock concerts. And since he never had much money, he always had to sit in the nosebleed section. Scrupulously checking out venues had become a pattern since he’d started playing those stadiums himself. And if a show was being taped, the routine became even more crucial. In the case of Texas Stadium, where he planned to film This Is Garth Brooks, Too!, he needed to know everything up to how helicopter shots might work.

  Making a big stadium show an intimate experience for every audience member might seem like an impossible undertaking, but Garth was determined to pull it off.

  THE CONCERT SEASON OF 1992 was a “big bucks summer,” according to Buddy Lee Attractions president Tony Conway. “The economy’s taking a turn and there is big interest in country from a younger audience,” he announced. “There aren’t a lot of new venues, but the venues are buying more this summer. Sheds [amphitheaters such as Nashville’s Starwood] that in the past bought one country show a month are buying three or four a month. If you go back to the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, there weren’t twenty-five acts that could play 24,000-seat arenas. We have forty acts and they’re all out there working.”

  Buddy Lee was up 16 percent over its 1991 gross and definitely in a position to profit from country’s renewed popularity. The agency booked Garth Brooks, Mark Chesnutt, Emmylou Harris, the Highwaymen (W
aylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash), Tracy Lawrence, Willie Nelson and Family, Waylon Jennings, Ricky Van Shelton, Doug Stone, Marty Stuart, Steve Wariner, Trisha Yearwood—and a newcomer named Martina McBride.

  In 1992, Garth set off on his first real solo tour, and thus began changing concert history. For the remainder of the decade, pop and rock ticket sales records fell by the wayside with regularity. Garth outsold them all, running the gamut from Elton John, Michael Jackson, and Prince to the Stones, Van Halen, and the Grateful Dead.

  For his opening act he turned to Martina McBride, wife of his production manager, John McBride, and newly signed to RCA Records. Martina got her shot with the label in an impressive bit of good-natured duplicity. After the label took a first pass on her demo tape, she famously sent it back with “Requested Material” written on the package, got a meeting, a recording contract, and an opening spot on the Garth Brooks show.

  Garth was impressed with Martina even before he ever heard her sing. “She used to come out on the road with John,” Garth reflected. “And one time I remember when we were all trying to move the sound equipment quickly, there she was—this tiny brunette, lugging stuff that the guys were huffing and puffing over. Then I heard one of her tapes and I’m going, ‘Oh, man!’ Anyone who ever wonders how all that voice can come out of that little body never saw Martina haul speakers.”

  Garth and Stillwater had been off the road since December 1991 when the ’92 tour started on June 2 with a sold-out show at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. Tickets for the 1992 tour sold in unprecedented time and record numbers, as they had for the concerts Garth headlined in ’90 and ’91.