CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Hopefully, we’re starting to build a family”
Pat Quigley’s promotion marked a bittersweet time for Garth. He hoped it meant that marketing for himself and others on the label would improve. But Music Row buzzed with speculations that he had again played power politics, and engineered Scott Hendricks’s removal.
Yet even as he was under fire, he soon began to receive support from his contemporaries. Reba McEntire sent an encouraging personal letter, and other Capitol artists, including Steve Wariner, spoke out on his behalf. Then Garth had a phone call from one of Capitol’s new superstars, a young woman who always spoke her mind: Deana Carter.
“I’m in agreement that we needed to change things around here,” Deana said. “But I want to sit down and tell you my experience, and how I think we could revive the label. It starts with communication.”
“I want to hear every word you have to say!” Garth replied.
Garth talked to Steve Morse at the Boston Globe about the conversation: “Deana Carter really keeps those people on their toes. She’s sweet as she can be, but also tougher than a tank. You don’t mess with her. I’ve really fallen in love with her attitude. She was very open and frank with me about what she thought. We’ve also had meetings at the label since the restructuring. The artists are now coming to those meetings with the label people.
“Hopefully, we’re starting to build a family.”
FIVE HIT SINGLES WERE released from Sevens, starting with “Longneck Bottle” and “She’s Gonna Make It.” “Two Piña Coladas,” the third single from Sevens, was a number 1 hit. (“Do What You Gotta Do” was an additional release, in the year 2000.)
The number 1 “To Make You Feel My Love” was sandwiched in between “Two Piña Coladas” and “You Move Me,” but it was not from Sevens. The song was Garth’s version of a Bob Dylan composition from the soundtrack of Hope Floats starring Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick Jr., and Gena Rowlands.
When Hope Floats director Forrest Whittaker and soundtrack producer Don Was first approached Garth about singing Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love,” Garth turned them down. “I don’t hear this as a Garth Brooks song,” he said at first listen. But when he sat down and studied the lyrics, he was sold on the beauty and simplicity of the words. He ended up loving the recording so much that he made his first new solo video in two years. Visuals from the film are prominently featured. Garth is seen walking through a house as images from the movie are projected on the walls.
“Longneck Bottle” not only wasn’t “too country” but made music history, thanks to the fans. Before its release, a Toronto station classified it as “western swing” and announced they’d not be playing it. Outraged fans responded with telephone calls and angry letters. Other stations in the region started using the slogan “We play ‘Longneck Bottle.’ ”
“Longneck Bottle” became the only single to be added by every Radio & Records reporting station on the day of its release. The song debuted in the R&R chart at number 10, the highest single debut in its history.
Garth used the opportunity to challenge radio to play more records from country’s legends: “The reason why I stand here is because of George Jones and Merle Haggard, and there’s the era before them, Hank Williams Sr., and Jimmie Rodgers, and the other people who started this whole thing. Why can’t we hear nine of the new things and every now and then throw in the reason we’re all here? Throw in a Haggard tune, or Jones?”
IT WAS SENSIBLE OF Garth to postpone the release of his seventh album for Capitol until he believed the label to have some semblance of stability. And ultimately, the decision to replace Hendricks was made in New York. People speculated that Jim Fifield and Ken Berry got rid of Hendricks out of desperation for Garth’s new album, and that Garth was behind the entire thing.
In fact, as had happened with Jimmy Bowen, there was another element to be factored in. Just as some of Bowen’s executives had burned up the phone lines complaining about his time on the golf course, one of Scott’s own team reportedly had been privately calling EMI complaining that Hendricks wasn’t up to the job. One executive brought in by Hendricks lamented the situation: “At one point some of the so-called Scott team got together on Tuesday nights where you couldn’t tell who they were trying to separate the rest of us from, Scott Hendricks or Garth Brooks—or both. It was ugly.”
“I know people believe that I’m some kind of a puppet master behind the scenes,” Garth confided. “I was unhappy with the way Scott handled Fresh Horses, but I didn’t call for his head. Give credit where it’s due—Scott did a good job with Trace Adkins and Deana Carter. I thought some kind of a co-presidency might work, with both Quigley and Hendricks in place. I’ve got influence at EMI, but I guarantee you, I don’t tell people like Jim Fifield or Ken Berry what to do. And I mainly wanted Quigley in charge of marketing Sevens. As great as Joe Mansfield is, I learned that you’ve got to have the marketing team at the label behind your records.”
Indeed, one of Fifield’s closest associates laughed at the idea that Garth Brooks was ordering around the CEO of EMI. “Jim made corporate decisions—EMI decisions,” she said. “It was not that he didn’t listen to people, but ultimately he always went his own way.”
But rumors of an out-of-control star ego persisted, fed by Jimmy Bowen’s newly published memoir, Rough Mix. The book prompted a flurry of press, including comments from Knight-Ridder’s Howard Cohen, who neglected to mention the people who actually were responsible for Garth’s record contract, Jim Foglesong and Lynn Shults. “Bowen, who was at the helm of the label when Brooks released his first album in 1989, portrays Brooks as a backstabbing ‘800-pound gorilla’ with a runaway ego.”
After ignoring the original Capitol bloodbath, Cohen continued to quote Bowen:
“When I refused to give Garth a new contract barely one year after renegotiating his original deal, he shook his cage. He went around me and won himself a rich, precedent-setting joint venture from EMI-America in New York. The deal had the potential to destroy Capitol Nashville.”
Steve Popovich, the man who’d run PolyGram at the turn of the decade, laughed out loud when he heard that comment. “That’s typical record label bullshit. Even the biggest, most powerful artists get screwed with their contracts. First there’s the cross collateralization, where labels get paid per dollar and not per album. That means the label controls the making of an artist’s early albums. Maybe wrong decisions are made, maybe the label pays too much for production or doesn’t promote worth a damn. Down the road, the artist gets his groove and starts kicking ass. But he still owes for all that went before. And he doesn’t even own the albums.
“Then there are all the recoupables nobody fully explains—tour support, press costs, promotion costs, those limo rides artists think the label is treating them to—it all comes out of the artists’ hides. And you don’t even want to talk about how the accounting is done. Irving Azoff once said that out of every 3,000 record company audits where errors are discovered, 2,998 of the discrepancies discovered are in favor of the labels. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If artists don’t take care of their own business, they’ll be robbed blind.”
Bowen liked to say that Garth insisted on a “rock ’n’ roll” deal, meaning similar to contracts that pop stars like Michael Jackson and Madonna could demand. Bowen told his artist, “You’re not Michael Jackson, Elvis, or the Beatles.” But Garth had the same career momentum as those artists. Further, using that concept as an indictment was an excuse that labels often used to treat their icons shabbily. When Columbia Records let Johnny Cash go in the late 1980s, the “rock ’n’ roll deal” defense surfaced, with Cash supposedly asking for too much signing money. It didn’t hold water then, either, because Johnny Cash had brought so much money to his label that some called CBS headquarters in New York “The House That Cash Built.” The people in charge of record companies are not paid those big bucks to protect the financial interests of their art
ists. Some try to, of course. Others don’t.
Garth had been reticent about responding to the Bowen charges over the years, but when Bowen’s book was published, he finally did.
“I made a better deal. These labels are charging an artist to make their albums and then they own it. My biggest problem with the label was this attitude of disposable music and its ‘Let’s move on to something new’ mindset. Catalog is everything to me and music is timeless. I don’t accept the fact that an album is over. Look at the Eagles’ Greatest Hits. It’s still going on.”
Garth never did really speak out against Bowen, personally, however. In 2000 he told Billboard, “I still sing Bowen’s praises, even though he didn’t mine in his book. I’m convinced Bowen knows what it takes to sell a book and I don’t think Bowen feels bad about me. I could be totally wrong, but Bowen was too sweet to me in the private times, and he was too concerned about my happiness in the private times—or convinced me of that.”
GARTH’S CONCERN ABOUT THE Nashville’s “let’s move on” syndrome was justified and it was a problem endemic within the entire business. Throughout its history the industry has espoused the concept of disposability. Whether it involves a single that stalls out or an album whose sales slow, too often the answer is a shrug. For all his faults as a label head, faults that would surface soon enough, Pat Quigley understood what the label owed to its artists. When a record label took the blood, sweat, and tears of a creative person it involved a responsibility. He agreed with Garth’s original key man, Joe Mansfield, on most sales philosophies. Neither saw each new album as simply the label’s latest entry in a beauty contest, but believed in selling a body of work.
“We need to look at Garth differently,” Quigley said. “His music will live forever. He is an entertainer, works harder than anyone, and is loyal to his fans. We can always find new customers for Garth. New customers will keep this business going.”
Quigley said he was willing to spend millions to market Sevens and that led to further speculation. Could Bowen have been right about Capitol taking a bath on Garth’s albums? No, according to a January 1998 analysis by Rolling Stone, which anticipated a substantial label profit. CDs cost pennies to produce, hence record companies’ willingness to throw product against the wall and see what sticks.
Moreover, Rolling Stone pointed out, when the label brought substantial marketing dollars to the table, others joined the effort. “Kmart, in an effort to link its name with the country superstar, spent several millions pitching Sevens with its own TV spots, and HBO dropped more than $10 million producing Brooks’ show at New York’s Central Park last summer.”
Sevens debuted at number 1 on both the Billboard 200 and country albums chart, the top-selling debut week of any album released in 1997. It topped the Billboard 200 chart for a total of seven weeks and the country chart for thirteen weeks. It has now been certified at 10 million sales. Additionally, by keeping Garth’s entire catalog easily available, those albums also gained in sales. Fresh Horses, especially, received a healthy boost in visibility.
USA Today’s critic David Zimmerman proclaimed Sevens Garth’s best ever album. “The track that shows an (almost) understated Brooks at his best is ‘She’s Gonna Make It,’ a story of a seventh-month crash of a former husband devastated by his ex-wife’s ability to cope.”
The urban markets were especially strong in 1997. The Boston Globe reported that Garth’s number 1 U.S. market was New York City, number 2 was Chicago, and number 3 Los Angeles. New York was also now the top market for Faith Hill and Wynonna. This is a stunning disclosure, given that New York City’s one country radio station, WYNY, was sold in 1996, changing its format to CHR (contemporary hit radio). The lone country voice was Y-107, broadcasting from Long Island, and often difficult to pick up in the city. Touring and television appearances were what kept country’s major stars visible.
In December 1997, the Country Music Association worked with pollster Edison Media Research and learned that one in five Americans considered country their favorite genre. The Midwest was the region with the highest percentage of country radio listeners and tape or CD buyers. Garth was the favorite artist, followed by Reba McEntire, Alabama, George Strait, LeAnn Rimes, and Shania Twain.
The final year of the 1996–1998 tour became one of the biggest in Garth’s career. In between tour dates, he squeezed in television appearances, awards shows, and work on a new project, assembling his first live album.
For that last year of the tour, reigning Country Music Association Female Vocalist Trisha Yearwood often appeared as the opening act and duet partner. To have her out on the tour was a coup. Trisha was a platinum-selling superstar with a string of hit records and country music awards. In 1997 she had a greatest-hits package in the stores and in 1998 she released a new studio album, Where Your Road Leads. “In Another’s Eyes,” from Sevens, earned a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for Garth and Trisha in 1998.
It had surprised Garth when Trisha approached him about going on part of the ’98 tour. Given her superstar status, Garth said, “Are you kidding? I can’t afford you!”
But, as Garth told Tamara Saviano, “Trisha said, ‘I’ll trade the money for the chance to play for big crowds and promote my album.’ My respect for her went through the roof. And I figure I’m going to look great bringing a woman of this caliber to town for this price!”
He also spoke of the long-term friendship and how much it meant to have Trisha out on the road with him.
“The things I value and cherish most are relationships and this one has lasted ten, eleven years. And it is one of the gifts I’ve had musically and professionally. People think we all hang out together, but none of us do. I never, ever get to see Vince or Alan or George or Reba or any one of those people. So it’s neat to have someone at the end of the day that I can talk to about payroll, about dying onstage when it ain’t going good. This is a great gift for me.”
For Trisha’s part, it was good business. She was in front of a big, friendly audience and it affected her performance: “The biggest challenge is to make your music fresh every night. I know when Garth gets onstage that’s one of the things he thinks about. A lot of entertainers don’t.”
Writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Jon Bream pointed to Garth’s deferential treatment of his opening act: “Musical highlights were Brooks’ duets with opening act Trisha Yearwood on ‘In Another’s Eyes’ and her ‘Walkaway Joe,’ on which he let her have the spotlight as he played guitar and merely sang harmonies. He came across as a true friend and fan of Yearwood’s.”
What came across onstage was a reflection of the truth: Garth and Trisha had remained very close friends through the years. He followed her career, cheered her on, and counted on her to add her vocals to his recordings.
GIVEN THE PRESSURES OF the tour that year, it was surprising that Garth had time to draw an easy breath between shows. But he squeezed in an impressive number of personal appearances and completed a significant recording project. However, the heavy schedule he kept would come back to haunt him in 1999.
On February 23, 1998, Garth appeared on Saturday Night Live as both musical guest and host. Garth said the producers of SNL had some serious work to do to make him funny to their audience. “Their humor is very dark. They’re taking care of me, but I’m not hip so they’re trying to fix that,” he told CNN.
He had two requests of the producers. “I told them I didn’t want to make fun of anybody. I said, ‘If you guys are going to do a skit on the president or something, keep me out of it. And then, second, please don’t make country music look ignorant, or the people that listen to it look ignorant.”
As he said, “I guess I should have added a couple more stipulations, like no falling in love with male strippers named Mango and no cross dressing!” But in fact, Garth didn’t mind making himself the butt of the gags. He appeared feigning a man-crush on the SNL character Mango and as an aging female prostitute.
The show earned o
vernight numbers of an 8.4 rating and a 22 share. It was the show’s highest-rated episode since October 24, 1994.
He also played an exhibition game with the San Diego Padres, helped The Nashville Network celebrate its fifteenth anniversary with a two-hour televised special, and joined members of John Wayne’s family in Washington, D.C., for a day-long USO celebration of the late actor. The Limited Series (box set) was released, so named because only 2 million units were produced. The set contained Brooks’s first six multiplatinum studio releases—Garth Brooks, No Fences, Ropin’ the Wind, The Chase, In Pieces, and Fresh Horses—as well as a new bonus track on each CD, for a total of sixty-six cuts and over three hours of music.
In November 1998 Capitol released a collection of live music taken from concerts over the years. Garth Brooks Double Live contained twenty-six songs, recorded primarily at shows from his history-making 1996–1998 tour. What Garth hoped to do was recreate the spontaneity of the concerts. That would be tough.
Take the final night of a Canadian run in 1993. It had been a long, exhausting tour and the band was starting to wear down. They knew it. Garth knew it and decided to fix it. Prior to showtime he called the band together for a pregame huddle.
“I’ll pay five hundred dollars in cash to anybody who can knock me down onstage tonight,” Garth announced.
“Impress you with a guitar lick or what?” someone asked.
“No, I mean physically knock me flat on my butt,” he said.
All through the night they took their best body slams much to the delight of the Canadians who witnessed it. When Garth was still standing by the final number, somebody gave the signal and they rushed to center stage, toppling him into a pile of laughing band members. They split the cash.
The Garth Factor Page 24
