His mother, Colleen, accompanied him on the tour, connecting with her family roots in County Cork. Later, Garth said he believed part of his attraction to the Irish was that the people shared his mother’s eternal optimism. But it was difficult to drag Colleen away from home those days. Colleen loved the sprawling brick house that Garth had purchased for his parents near Oklahoma City.
Garth and Kelly had been talking about buying a new home for their parents for some time. Every time they were home on a break, they looked through the classifieds in the Daily Oklahoman. When they spotted this house, and saw that it had adjoining property, they figured they had found the perfect gift.
It’s hard to know what Colleen’s skeptical mother might have thought if she’d lived to see the Brooks’s 150 acres, complete with an acre-and-a-half-sized pond, roaming deer, wild turkey, and fox. But when Raymond and Colleen Brooks spoke about the new place with Believer editor Tami Rose, they said the success and ability to give such gifts had not changed their son.
Though he seldom spoke of Garth’s stardom in public, Raymond explained to Rose that when his son’s career started to explode, he had given some advice to Garth. “You will be surrounded every day with people who are positive, ‘yes people’ that will give you no negatives and that’s not the real world. There are negatives involved in everyday living.” He also warned his son about the dangers of making compromises. “People compromise each day of their life but when it comes to values, true values and convictions, then you better back off.”
In retrospect, Raymond believed that his son never buckled on things involving his value system. In fact, there was just one change Raymond saw. Since starting his career Garth’s business sense had sharpened, and Raymond credited that to using the tools from his college years. “Garth told Colleen and I that he didn’t think he would ever use his degree. And I told Garth, ‘I don’t care if you get out on the highway and stick your thumb out the day after you graduate, as long as you get that sheepskin.’ We both wanted him to know that he had something to fall back on, some security.”
Both parents believed that those four years at Stillwater had been invaluable on many levels. They understood that Garth had learned lessons about dealing with challenges, with people as well as with life-and-death situations, such as when his friends Jim and Heidi had been killed. Through it all, he’d developed a capacity for critical thinking and problem solving—and the ability to keep his feet on the ground.
Colleen explained one reason he remained centered: “A lot of people start believing that they are always right and they take themselves too seriously.”
The ability to keep things in perspective was never more obvious than during the time Garth faced that hostile reception from the British interviewers. He rejected the impulse to react in an equally hostile manner, retained the dignity he believed he owed country music, yet returned home with an honest accounting of what had happened.
THE SOLD-OUT CONCERTS drew the largest audience for any event in Dublin since the pope’s visit in 1979. By the time Garth’s eight Dublin shows wrapped, he had been seen live by one in every fifty people in Ireland. One in four Irish families owned a Brooks CD or cassette. Dublin senator Paschal Mooney attended one of the concerts and said, “Every Irish home used to have three pictures: Jesus, the Pope, and JFK—and now there’s a fourth, Garth Brooks.”
It was an unprecedented welcome for an American artist.
Garth spent a great amount of his offstage time in 1994 with the Irish people. He used both the city buses and the DART (similar to an above-ground subway system) to sightsee, rode horses, and played golf. He came to love the Irish for their “unpretentiousness” and the connection he felt between their own music and the country music he loved. And he was so pumped up about their enthusiasm for music that he promised to return, and bring cameras.
“The thing about the Irish people is that there is no resistance. There’s no clenched fist. It’s all open,” Garth later explained. “They sing. They just pop their heads back and sing. And they sing so well!”
Sandy Brooks also had a special connection with the Irish performance. Because she was at home, just weeks away from giving birth, Garth phoned her from the stage, and the audience serenaded her. Garth loved his experience at the Point in Dublin so much that he named a spot at his Tennessee farm after the venue.
He later told the Irish Times’ Kathy Sheridan that he did so because his experience in Dublin had changed his life: “Something happened at the Point that really just—just changed where I was going in my life. Changed my views on myself and on the music. It meant that much. You know, if you’re playin’ only in your own backyard, you start to think, ‘Hey, things are happening here and it’s cool’—but only in your own backyard. And you think, ‘But it wouldn’t go over in that person’s backyard.’ So you go over there and something like this happens that gives you a faith, gives you a courage to actually not be afraid of the world, to not be afraid of the differences we have.”
The World Tour was vital to the industry in that many country stars wait until their careers have cooled somewhat to play extensively outside the United States. Garth’s commitment, beginning during peak years of his career, encouraged promoters worldwide to book more country acts than normal, benefiting everyone. Two years later, in May 1995, the Academy of Country Music presented Garth with the Jim Reeves Memorial Award at its 30th Annual ACM Awards show in Los Angeles. Named for the man who thirty-five years earlier had pioneered international country markets, the award is only given when the ACM recognizes an artist who has uniquely promoted and enhanced the image of country music internationally.
When Garth returned, he said he believed that country artists should travel out of the country more in an effort to dispel the stereotype: “A lot of the journalists I spoke with felt like country music was nothing but hats, fringe jackets, hay bales, cry-in-your-beer lyrics and ‘Yee-hah!’ The only way to erase the Hollywood image of country music is to bring the real thing to the rest of the world.”
Garth confessed that much of his time during the world tour was spent in search of food: “I ate eels in Spain and haggis in Scotland for the first and last time. What I kept looking for was a Taco Bell. Unfortunately, there were none to be found. We had a ray of hope in Melbourne, Australia, because our bus driver mentioned that Taco Bell was around the corner from the hotel. The band and I were all excited until we found the restaurant—Taco Bill’s.”
One leg of the tour lost money, but it was not unexpected. “All the rock acts told us, ‘Take half your show to Australia.’ It costs a dollar and a half a pound to fly stuff down there. And you’re talking about a rig that we’ve got: 90,000 pounds. You can’t pass that on to the people.” Garth flew the whole show to Australia anyway. “We sold out fourteen shows and still lost a ton of money,” he laughed.
There was one period of time when Garth came home from the international tour to await a much more important event, the birth of his second daughter, August Anna, born on May 3, 1994. “Having a second child is an eye-opener,” he later told friends at Jack’s Tracks. “When you’re waiting, you think in terms of the first baby. You sometimes picture the new baby as a little version of the first one. Then she arrives and right away you see that this is a whole other person. August had her own little personality from the beginning. I don’t know how many children Sandy will want to have, but I’d love a whole house full of girls!”
That July Garth made a special appearance with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Los Angeles, California. It sold out in twenty-one minutes, leading Hollywood Bowl events manager Mark Ferber to say, “I can’t remember, since the Beatles, a longer box office line than this morning for Garth Brooks.”
Garth tried something unexpected at the Hollywood Bowl. He asked a couple of cowboy friends to meet him in Los Angeles and open the show. “I couldn’t believe it when Garth called and said he wanted Dan Roberts and me to open a show that important!” Bryan Kennedy exclaimed.
“I said, ‘Man, you’re taking a big chance!’ And Garth just laughed it off. So Dan and I flew out to Los Angeles and checked into this expensive hotel where Garth had us booked. We got worried, though, because the front desk kept saying they had no reservations for Garth himself. We tried to call somebody—anybody—who knew what was going on. We wondered if something had happened to the bus, or if the show had been called off. But people at the Hollywood Bowl said no, the show was still scheduled. Then we started thinking he must be checked in under a fake name. Finally, I got a call from Garth. ‘Where are you?’ I asked.”
“Oh, we got in late and checked into a motel just outside the city,” he answered.
Bryan hung up the phone and turned to Dan Roberts. “This is just wrong,” he laughed.
But for Garth it was right, because every day he fought to keep living in the real world. In 1993 he gave Rolling Stone one of his most candid interviews ever, laying out what constant touring meant, how stardom had affected him, and why it was often disquieting. In it he refers to his childhood friend Mickey Weber, his brother Kelly, sister Betsy, and college roommate Ty England.
“You wake up at one or two in the afternoon and you see a guy you’ve known since the second grade, and he says, ‘Hey, man, here’s your schedule. I’ve already called these people and set up everything. You wanna go get something to eat?’ So we go and if it’s a busy place, he runs in and gets it for me, and we sit and eat and talk.
“Then the next guy comes looking for you, and it’s a guy you’ve known all your life—your brother. He says, ‘Okay, man, here’s the scoop for tonight. We’ve got this percentage here and this percentage here. We’ve come up short with this money and come up over with this money.’ And then he goes, ‘There’s dinner, do you want to go eat?’ So I go eat with him.
“Then you get ready to go onstage. It’s a thing of ours, before we go onstage, all the band members get together, hold hands, and say something that’s funny or inspirational. But in that handshake, I look up and there’s a woman I’ve known all my life, my sister. I look at a guy who was one of my college roommates. And when we finish, my sister comes up, gives me a high five, and says, ‘Hey, man, I had a great time tonight. You want to go eat?’ I say, ‘Sure.’ And I go back to sleep and the next day it’s the same thing.
“That’s not real life. We’ve had construction on our house for a year now. Seeing those guys showing up at six thirty in the morning—that’s real life.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“A white tuxedo and a lot of red paint”
When Garth had told Jon Small he wanted a scene in his video for “The Red Strokes” to be an attention-grabber, the director came up with an extraordinary idea. Garth in stark white would emerge from a sea of red. To accomplish that effect the scene would have to be shot in reverse. And so on the day “The Red Strokes” was filmed, Garth sat dressed in a white tuxedo at the white baby grand and waited until the crew began to lower him into the vat of red paint. Lower and lower he went, doing his best to appear as if nothing unusual was happening. But as the liquid covered more of his body, a thought hit him. The paint had been stored out-of-doors the previous night. It was very cold. Finally his face was covered, and he began to go into shock. Garth had always been a little gun-shy when it came to videos. He believed if you made one it should be unique so that people sat up and took notice. “Well,” he thought, “this attention-grabber is going to kill me.”
BY 1994, 42 PERCENT of Americans said they regularly listened to country music, and business revenues increased by 13 percent from 1993. Newcomer Faith Hill released her first Warner Bros. album, Take Me as I Am, produced by Scott Hendricks. The debut single, “Wild One,” stayed at number 1 a month, making Faith the first female country singer in years to have a debut with that kind of staying power. Only three women had ever kept a debut single at the top of Billboard’s charts for longer. In 1952 Kitty Wells spent six weeks at number 1 with the classic “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Jean Shepard’s “A Dear John Letter” held out for six weeks the same year. And the record for the longest-running female debut was Connie Smith’s 1964 eight-week chart-topping run with “Once A Day.”
Toby Keith was introduced to country fans with his 1993 number 1, “Should’ve Been A Cowboy,” and three more hits followed from his self-titled debut on Mercury. Brooks & Dunn’s Hard Workin’ Man had five hit singles between 1993 and 1994, and they continued their reign as the CMA Duo of the Year. Tim McGraw made his Top 10 debut with “Indian Outlaw” from the hit-packed Not a Moment Too Soon. Trisha Yearwood had a big ’94, with the number 1 “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl)” and marriage to Mavericks bassist Robert Reynolds.
Ironically, the industry was growing in great part because of Garth’s success at the very time the relationship with his own record label was deteriorating. Tension over the label’s marketing and other issues had escalated between Garth and Bowen during The Chase and climaxed with the next album, In Pieces.
“We titled this album In Pieces because that’s pretty much how it came together,” Garth said at the time. “We had more time with this album, and we had fun with it. It’s got more of a live feel than any of the earlier albums, and I think that’s partly because—while we didn’t realize we were doing it—we were picking songs that are truly representative of the live show. The other albums were all nailed to the wall, with a specific plan, and a specific vision. This time we just went in totally free and jumped off the cliff, smiled, and said, ‘Let’s see what falls together.’ ”
This change of pace was in many ways a reaction to what had happened with The Chase. For that album Garth had opened up, dug deep, and—in some people’s terms—come up short. This time he was on the road constantly, less in his own head and more in those of his audience. It didn’t mean he shied away from substantial material, but that he could respond immediately to songs that set his fans on fire. And he remained somewhat gunshy about seeming too serious and message-driven.
One of the most popular with audiences was a Bryan Kennedy/Jim Rushing number titled “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association.”
“I had a blast singing this song,” Garth laughed. “It’s about the guys who drive the trash trucks or plow the fields, then hang out talking things over at the corner bar. And the truth is, they could probably run the country as well or better than the ones doing it now!”
“Ain’t Going Down (Til The Sun Comes Up)” is a rapid-fire, in-your-face tune. Garth and Kim Williams were writing at Kent Blazy’s new house, which Blazy laughingly referred to as “a real fixer-upper.” Since the house was filled with workmen the three sat on Kent’s back porch. Garth said he didn’t yet have a title, but he wanted to work on something with “shotgun lyrics.”
“Once we got the title, he had the complete picture in his head,” Blazy said. “He knew how the lines would come—fast and furious at the listener—how the music would sound, right down to where it would be on his next album!”
The team worked through the afternoon and finally adjourned to Kent’s home studio to record a demo. That’s when, as Garth later laughed, “the critics showed up.”
Kent was working on that rapid-fire beat with a drum machine when a swarm of termites started coming out of the floor. “Kim—who has the weirdest sense of humor in the world—told me not to worry,” Kent recalled. “He said, ‘Hey, when Garth and I wrote “Papa Loved Mama” we had a roach attack, and that song was a hit.’ ”
So was “Ain’t Going Down (Til The Sun Comes Up),” the first single released from the album. The second release, “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association,” also topped the charts. Those two numbers are part of the reason Garth now listens to InPieces when he wants to crank up some loud music in the pickup.
One of the reasons Kim Williams loved working with Garth was because of his melodies, and it is a talent that tends to be overshadowed by the admiration for his skill with lyrics. “I thought I was pretty melodic,” Kim said. “
But then I found there were people in town that could run circles around me melodically, including Garth. When I realized that, I started concentrating more on lyrics and that became my thing, to write lyrics and try to collaborate with people who were melodically strong.”
“The Red Strokes” is a song that had its beginnings when Garth’s friend Lisa Sanderson went to the Louvre in Paris. “When Lisa came back she told me that one particular painting caught her eye because of the red strokes in it,” Garth said. “They indicated passion in her mind. So we wrote this song, about how passion is a little like the red strokes of a painting. The ‘red strokes’ of life are those times when you are at your most emotional, when you’re hot about something—angry or thrilled, maybe in pursuit of a dream.”
Garth wrote “Standing Outside The Fire” with Jenny Yates. The two had first met before he had a recording contract, and although they’d written several songs, none had been recorded. Jenny had once been an artist on PolyGram. Her songs and style were powerful, but not quite in line with the glitzy ’80s. When her deal didn’t pan out, she returned to California and continued to write, checking back with Nashville publishers as often as she could afford to make the trip for song pitching and co-write opportunities.
Once Garth’s career took off Jenny feared she’d never have a chance to write with him again. Too many artists, when they hit, turn to big-name collaborators or start writing solo. But one day she ran into him at a Nashville music event and mentioned a desire to get together. “I’ll call you,” Garth said.
Jenny was tentatively hopeful. But then just a couple of weeks later Garth called her in Los Angeles and asked her if she could come to his hotel to try and come up with a song idea. She had one in mind, and while it didn’t become the song, it was the inspiration.
The Garth Factor Page 18
