The Garth Factor

by Patsi Bale Cox

  The September 22 show at the New York State Fair in Syracuse was a case in point. The Syracuse Post-Standard’s Brian Bourke reported: “It was a year of records for New York State Fair entertainment and behind most of them there’s a guy named Garth Brooks. Garth Brooks’ concert last Wednesday was the fastest sellout in State Fair history. Brooks also did much to help the Fair collect its highest-ever gross receipts from concert sales, more than $2 million.”

  The Idaho Statesman in Boise reported that on April 22, between ten and eleven in the morning, 205,000 attempted calls were logged through Boise Idaho’s call switching center. That was opposed to the typical 85,000 calls per day. The December 4 show at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee, sold 25,501 tickets. When Lynyrd Skynyrd played a free concert at Thompson-Boling in 2002, it brought out 17,400 to the show, still not breaking Garth’s record.

  When tickets went on sale in Seattle for the Tacoma Dome, Garth’s show sold out in minutes. The concert at the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul set a fair record for ticket requests, 160,000. When the Fresno show sold out in twenty-nine minutes, fans petitioned for more. But Garth was booked solid and it was impossible. Garth knew then that he had to consider bigger venues and additional shows.

  This breathtaking success presented a serious challenge: the ticket scalping that had become a problem in ’91 rose to astonishing levels. After reports of scalped tickets being offered for one hundred dollars or more at the New York State Fairgrounds, the state’s attorney general’s office began looking into the problem. When the Post-Standard phoned the scalpers’ office, the man who answered said it was legal and complained that while he was making big money on Garth, he “ate the cost” of the ticket-buy the company had made for a Genesis concert at the Carrier Dome. People writing letters to the paper didn’t blame Garth, and most said they’d still wait in line to buy tickets to one of his concerts. One security guard said of the scalpers and line crashers, “In the eleven years I’ve worked here, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Garth begged people to reject the one-hundred-dollar tickets. “Do not pay those prices,” he announced. “I’ve seen my show and I promise you it’s not worth it!”

  Reviewers disagreed. On July 20, the L.A. Times’ Richard Cromelin wrote, “The country singer is the hottest commodity in creation, and his success was part of the Forum ceremony, which was less a concert than a community celebration.”

  Garth kept his ticket prices under twenty dollars when many were charging five times that. He believed a family of four should be able to attend one of his concerts, and be able to dine out that night without busting their budget. The concern about fans overpaying for tickets was reflected across-the-board in his concert approach, and it paid off. He not only broke records at the box office, but also with merchandise sales. It was done by strict attention to detail, keeping his prices down and profit margin low. While others were charging upwards of twenty-five to thirty dollars for T-shirts that were often poor in quality, Garth bought Hanes Beefy-T, the “Cadillac” of shirts, and sold them for fifteen to twenty dollars. While other artists made far more money per sale, Garth moved more merchandise. Rondal Richardson ran the concessions at the time.

  “For perspective, this is how the concession industry thrived with Garth,” he explained. “With 20,000 fans attending a rock concert, it doesn’t take long at $30 a shirt for a hot band from the ’90s to obtain a gross of about $200,000, or about $10 per customer. That amounts to 6,000 shirts sold in one night for the rockers. Take the same crowd at a typical Garth show of 20,000. Because the merchandise was not only of better quality but also less expensive, fans often bought two shirts instead of one. So it wasn’t uncommon for him to have an average of $15 in sales per person sales ratio. That’s a gross of about $300,000 but with 20,000 shirts sold. That’s how Garth did business, and he did it honorably at every level of his tour. When I think back on working for Garth, I am always reminded that he treated the fans, the customers, like friends. He’d sometimes say, ‘If I am the product, would I buy me?’ He cared about one fan at a time, and that is how he built a business franchise that will never be equaled.”

  GARTH HAD BEEN THINKING about a second NBC show even before his debut special first aired in January 1992. In fact, just two months after This Is Garth Brooks was filmed at Dallas’s Reunion Arena in September 1991, Garth was on the phone inquiring about the possibilities of filming a special at Texas Stadium. He visited the stadium in September 1992, and, again, as he usually does at any unfamiliar venue, he spent hours sitting in one section after another visualizing the concert experience from the fans’ perspective. He came away worried that the stadium was too big for fans to truly appreciate the show.

  He made the final decision after four visits spent working out the logistics of the event. In May 1993, Garth came to Texas Stadium and firmed up a deal. On June 12 Garth called a news conference, where he admitted to the Dallas press that he was worried about filling the stadium.

  “I’m hungry again,” Garth said at the Dallas news conference. “I’m going back to being the guy you met in 1989 with a wild look in his eye.”

  The look in Garth’s eyes wasn’t anywhere close to being as wild as what happened when those tickets went on sale. On June 12, Texas Stadium sold out in ninety-two minutes, selling over 65,000 tickets and breaking the previous sales record held by Paul McCartney. Dallas fans demanded and got more shows: a second show sold 65,000 tickets in ninety-two minutes, as did a third.

  Because of the continued problem with ticket scalping, Garth appeared on the Crook & Chase show on July 9 and announced a fourth concert. This one, he said, would be free. As it turned out, because of planned special effects, the show’s producers believed Garth needed to lip-synch an entire show for some close-ups. That offered a way he could take the wind out of the scalpers’ sails.

  When Garth planned the concerts, he kept in mind some advice his dad had once given him: Leave people with some great memories. Garth had taken the advice to heart years before. It was in 1989, when he was just starting out, that he told KPLX-FM deejay Steve Harmon on the station’s Harmon and Evans morning show that country music shows should be able to have some flash, some spectacle: “Why should rock ’n’ roll get all the glory?”

  Show preparations did not go without incident. While working on what was being called a “supergrid,” eighteen crew members were injured as the stage roof supporting lighting and sound equipment dropped to the ground. It was a grid system that had successfully been used for a George Michael show at Texas Stadium, and had previously had no problems. Garth was rehearsing in Las Colinas when the grid collapsed, and he rushed to Texas Stadium as soon as he got word of the accident. “God was with us,” he said on learning that there were no fatalities or serious injuries. He stayed at the stadium late helping clear debris. Rather than try to replace the supergrid hanging over the stage, the show’s producers essentially turned the entire stadium into a lighting system.

  Garth stepped into the show preparations with a more hands-on approach. He has often been accused of micromanaging much of his career, but people who have worked closely with him say that he is just the opposite—unless he perceives a problem. Jon Small, who later produced videos and television specials for Garth, explained: “Every time I worked with Garth he first sat down and told me his basic idea. Then I got back to him on how I planned to proceed. If we were on the same page, then I barely heard from him again! Garth only jumps back into a project when something starts to go south, and then, sure, he’ll roll up his sleeves and help salvage it. Luckily, with the two of us, that was never necessary.”

  Overseeing the concert filming was a monumental task. This Is Garth Brooks, Too! took 40,000-plus man hours to produce, with 60 semi tractor-trailers bringing in the equipment. Over 3.5 miles of heavy-gauge chain was used to hang the structure that housed the sound, lighting, cables, motors, and special effects. Over 500 varilights were used and over 150,000 pounds of speake
r cabinets and cables. A crew of over 600 professionals from engineers to architects to equipment operators and stagehands worked on the show. Over 16,000 gallons of diesel fuel were used to power equipment, with 50 miles of electrical cable and a sound system that used 40,000 watts of power at peak performance. A typical concert uses 2,000 amps of power. Garth’s show used 60,000 amps. The entire football field was covered with tarp and plywood, with special risers built to bring the show up close and personal.

  Garth’s commitment to detail expanded beyond the actual concerts, too. He was hands-on when it came to editing footage from four shows into one television special. He went to Los Angeles to personally supervise the final editing of This Is Garth Brooks, Too! As TV Guide’s Skip Hollandsworth noted in the April 30, 1994, issue, “[Garth] has already studied all 450,000 feet of film shot from the 14 cameras. He also decided to select the opening sequences for the show.” Why the personal attention to detail? Because, Garth told Hollandsworth, he understood that celebrity is a fragile commodity: “I’ve seen audiences get tired of people 10,000 times more talented than me.”

  When ThisIs Garth Brooks, Too! aired in May 1994 it gave NBC its best adult (18- to 49-year-olds) rating in the time slot since the first of the year.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Country’s Big Boom

  Billy Ray Cyrus was talking with a trusted Mercury Records executive, a woman with years of music industry experience and a good head on her shoulders. After kicking around playing honky-tonks and dives for years, Billy Ray finally had his shot. He had an album he believed in and a record label that believed in him. Life couldn’t have been better. Still, Billy Ray had some concerns.

  “Can I talk to you a little about ‘Achy Breaky Heart’?” he asked. “I’m kinda worried.”

  “I can’t think why. It’s going to be a smash.”

  “It’s about the video,” Billy Ray offered hesitantly. “It’s not over the top, is it?”

  “Nah, don’t give it another thought. It’s gonna be great,” she said, laughing. “This is the nineties. Country is rockin’.”

  BETWEEN 1989 AND 1992 country radio went from 1,800 to 2,400 stations, with more people with incomes of over $40,000 listening to country than any other format. Country was generating over a billion in annual revenue. In January 1992, Billboard reported, “Garth Brooks tied his own country album sales record in December, topping the five-million mark with Ropin’ the Wind. His previous album, No Fences, hit five million sold just two months earlier. Brooks is only the third male solo artist—after Michael Jackson and Billy Joel—with back-to-back albums over five million. Country music is clearly taking center stage. According to Arbitron, of the Top 100 stations, country tops 47 US radio markets. And 67 have a country station ranked #1 or #2 with the most desired demographic, the 25–54 age group.”

  Time noted that the new demographics reflected both new music and new artists, the first generation of stars who had been raised on rock but chose to record country. “Today’s hot country stars, Garth Brooks foremost among them, are more likely to be college graduates with IRAs than dropouts with prison records.” It was hyperbole, of course, given the relatively small number of country singers who actually did time, but it made a point.

  The article, titled “Country’s Big Boom,” included a laundry list of the new Nashville. Vince Gill lived on a golf course and looked like he wore L.L.Bean. Cleve Francis, signed by Jimmy Bowen to Capitol, was a black cardiologist. Mary Chapin Carpenter had a degree in American civilization from Brown University. K.T. Oslin once played Broadway. Reba McEntire studied classical violin and piano in college. Other artists than those mentioned fit the new profile as well. Capitol’s Suzy Bogguss had a degree in art from Illinois State. Mercury’s Kathy Mattea played in a bluegrass band while at West Virginia Uni versity. MCA’s Trisha Yearwood studied music business at Nashville’s Belmont University, while her labelmate Lionel Cartwright had a degree in business administration. Billy Dean played college basketball in Decatur, Mississippi. Then of course, there was Garth Brooks’s advertising degree from Oklahoma State, once more misidentified as a marketing degree in the Time article.

  These were part of Nashville’s new breed, the artists who were drawing in both younger listeners and baby boomers bored with AOR (Album Oriented Rock, focusing on album cuts). As Time pointed out, their effect was felt throughout the mainstream. Nashville Now host Ralph Emery’s autobiography, Memories, stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for months. Country America magazine doubled its circulation to almost 1 million. The 1991 Country Music Awards show, broadcasted on CBS, landed in the Nielsen Top 10. NBC shot back with This Is Garth Brooks and Hot Country Nights.

  Country had an embarrassment of riches by 1992. The biggest-selling album was Billy Ray Cyrus’s Some Gave All. Garth took some zingers from the press after his overwhelming success, but Billy Ray was absolutely steamrolled.

  The Flatwood, Kentucky, native was the son of a single mother who worked as a maid to support him after her gospel-singing husband left. Billy Ray worked at a succession of jobs—in a warehouse, a car lot—before starting to sing professionally. Besides singing on his own in a lot of small clubs, Billy Ray had opened some big shows and there was a reason he wowed audiences of 15,000 and more: he was one hell of an entertainer. Even so, he had to visit Nashville over forty times before Opry star Del Reeves took an interest and introduced him to a manager named Jack McFadden, who in turn led him to Buddy Cannon and Harold Shedd at Mercury Records. Once the two saw him live, they were sold.

  Billy Ray’s initial success was stunning, and not without a downside. He liked a tape he’d heard of a song called “Don’t Tell My Heart,” originally on a 1991 Marcy Brothers record. It was a ditty with an infectious, danceable melody. He recorded the song, renamed it “Achy Breaky Heart,” and began the requisite meetings with video directors, press photo shoots, and other pre-release preparations. The label determined that this catchy tune might be turned into a dance craze. Melanie Greenwood, wife of singer Lee Greenwood, choreographed the video and advances were sent out to clubs. The clip featured Billy Ray wearing a torn T-shirt and out-hip-grinding Elvis in front of mobs of young slavering females. It came down to that “over the top” concern Billy Ray had in the beginning: the video had a sex-object look to it that didn’t go over with some hillbilly cats.

  Travis Tritt, in particular, despised it and went on record with his disdain. Tritt was riding high himself when Billy Ray’s debut hit the air. His 1991 album, It’s All About to Change, had four chart-topping hits including a couple of jukebox naturals, “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’,” a duet with Marty Stuart, and “Here’s A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares).” In 1992, T.R.O.U.B.L.E. spelled anything but, with hits like “Lord Have Mercy On The Working Man.” But maybe T.R.O.U.B.L.E. got Travis spoiling for a fight.

  Tritt pointed out to the press that Billy Ray’s video fan scenes were a hype and his gyrating led one to think he’d once been a Chippendale dancer. Tritt then spouted off on country radio about “ass wiggling,” leading his friend Marty Stuart to quip, “Travis, you couldn’t have opened a bigger can of worms if you’d said Roy Acuff was gay.”

  Nevertheless, “Achy Breaky Heart” spent five weeks at the top of the country charts, and hit Top 5 in the pop chart—a rarity in the ’90s market—and became a top-selling single. The album, Some Gave All, ended up selling nine million copies. The thing about the whole sorry episode is that it was misplaced ado about something—a monster success no matter what some Nashville malcontents thought. Billy Ray’s second album, It Won’t Be the Last, rocked a little harder but didn’t produce any hit close to the magnitude of “Achy Breaky.” He went on to record a respectable catalog that included country, bluegrass, and gospel. And if those didn’t cause more than a few to dine on crow, Billy Ray’s success with the television series Doc and daughter Miley’s stratospheric ascent served it up on multiplatinum platters.

  Arista’s Alan Jackson established
himself as one of the industry’s biggest stars with 1991’s Don’t Rock the Jukebx and 1992’s A Lot About Livin’ and a Little ’Bout Love. While many critics considered his debut, Here in the Real World, the best of the three, his chart-driven sales picked up enormously with the ’91 and ’92 releases. Singles from Don’t Rock the Jukebox stayed at number 1 seven weeks, and from A Lot About Livin’ and a Little ’Bout Love for five weeks, including the monster career recording “Chattahoochee.”

  Reba McEntire still sat atop the female vocalist roster, but the new Queen of Country had been through a tough year. After playing a private show for IBM on March 15, 1991, the private plane carrying seven of her band members and their road manager crashed, with no survivors, on Otay Mountain near San Diego, California. It goes without saying that Reba was inconsolable.

  “At first I didn’t want to get close to anybody ever again, ’cause I was afraid they’d be taken away,” Reba told CBS News. “Then I realized that can’t be the situation. You gotta embrace the people you’re with. You gotta take every minute as if it’s your last.”

  After much deliberation, she decided to address the tragedy in song on For My Broken Heart. The title cut went to number 1, as did “Is There Life Out There.” The final song on For My Broken Heart, “If I Had Only Known,” is a tribute to the friends she lost. Reba said that the album meant more to her than any album she’d ever recorded.

  Wynonna Judd’s much-anticipated eponymous solo album on MCA lived up to expectations, with some songs offering a glimpse back into the duo days, while most stretched out to show Wy’s power and versatility. Standouts included her first solo number 1 hit, “She Is His Only Need,” with startling revelatory lyrics and a melodic break from country. She followed it with “I Saw The Light.” Radio also saw the light and held the single at number 1 for three weeks. Her high-energy blues performance on “No One Else On Earth” surpassed even the previous chart foray, holding at number 1 for a month. Wynonna sold five million albums and put Wynonna front and center among Nashville’s female vocalists.