Dreaming Out Loud

by Bruce Feiler

  Then he stopped himself. “But it’s not the answer I thought it would be,” he said. “I thought if I ever got a record deal and had hits that there would be nothing wrong in my life at all. But that’s not the case. You’ve still got your same old problems. You’ve still got girl problems. You’ve still got worries with your career. There’s people around you that get sick and pass away. You know, just regular life problems that I never even considered beforehand because I was so worried about money.”

  And, of course, Wade still faced another big problem: music. “I tell people I want to sing country music,” Wade explained. “That’s what I write. That’s what I listen to. That’s what I am, personality-wise. I like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Merle Haggard. Their songs say something, and they were different. They stirred your heart. One way or another, you either got pissed off or mad right with them or you had your heart broke with ’em. That’s what I want to do, man. Connect with people. There’s something about the process—creating a song, putting it on a record, playing it onstage, then having somebody tell you they like what you wrote. That’s what it’s all about. And when you do it right, it’s like ‘Hey, he’s been reading my mail!’”

  Which, in the end, is the task of country music: to read people’s mail, to go into their empty bedrooms, to probe around the dark corners of their imaginations, to inspire them, to commiserate with them, to enlighten them, to poke fun at them, to dance with them on Saturday night, to wake with them on Sunday mornings, to bring them out of their shadows and into the day, and to do it all with grace and wit.

  “You know what I was thinking about just the other day?” Wade said. An hour had passed on the sofa that morning. Two years had passed since we first met. Later that afternoon, he would return to the studio to begin cutting his third album. “I realized that since I had come to Nashville I’ve been to every state in the country except Hawaii and Alaska. And I was thinking, I had this notion that people up North or out West had nothing to do with country music. I was really apprehensive about playing there. Finally I realized a good song speaks to anybody. Just because they’re living in a different part of the United States doesn’t mean they don’t like the same things I do. It’s made me realize that people aren’t as different as I thought they were. You’ve got your basic types of people everywhere you go. There’s good ones and there’s bad ones. There’s people that get it, and people that don’t get it. People with soft hearts, people who don’t give a care.”

  “And as a performer?”

  “My job is just to go out and entertain ’em. Let ’em see and hear what they came to see and hear. And I try. I try harder now than I ever have to go out and entertain them. I still want it. I want it just as bad, if not worse, than when I first came to town. I’ve got it caught. I’ve got it corralled. I just don’t have it roped and broke yet. That’s my next goal.”

  “And are you going to do that?”

  “I believe so. I didn’t know anything when I came to town. It’s been a lot to absorb. I got a little sidetracked, but I sincerely feel like my old self again. And I think it’s going to work.”

  Later that day, as the sun peeked its head through the Nashville skyline, Don Cook drove his cherry red Mercedes to the front door of the studio, hopped out, and wandered into the control room, where Wade was waiting. The musicians in their hatchbacks and pickups soon followed. And by just before two, the familiar buzz had returned to Studio A. The men gathered in the soundproof room on Division Street, just east of Music Row, were legends. They had come, on this day, to help create another.

  CODA

  THE FUTURE

  The idea of Garth Brooks playing Central Park in New York City had been floating around Nashville for years. And for years Garth Brooks had turned it down. “Politely we told them, ‘There’s just no reason to be there,’” he said. By early 1997, with his career seemingly stalled, Garth finally had a reason. He needed another of his patented public spectacles to galvanize attention around his new album, Sevens, which he hoped would launch his resurrection. Central Park, he said, would provide the ultimate “media event” to initiate that revival.

  On Thursday, August 7, 1997, at the start of an unseasonably pleasant evening in Manhattan, several hundred thousand fans crammed into the North Meadow of Central Park to hear a free concert by the person HBO, which broadcast the show live, called “America’s most popular performer.” (As for the exact number of attendees, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said there were 150,000 people; Park police placed the number at 250,000; while Garth announced from the stage that the figure was 900,000.) Numbers aside, the evening was an unabashed triumph for Garth Brooks. Though he had given better vocal performances, and certainly ones with more spontaneity (for much of the show, Garth seemed to be apologizing to New Yorkers for invading their city), the content was hardly important. After a remarkably brief span of eight years, Garth Brooks had come to the country’s most famous venue in the nation’s most unforgiving city and dominated media coverage for weeks on end, obliging the mayor to put on a cowboy hat, local television reporters to seek out barbecue spots, and the New York Times to put Garth’s photograph on Page A1, above the fold.

  More to the point, Garth had finally elevated himself to the pantheon of heroes he had long sought to infiltrate. The show began with an homage to Art Garfunkel, reached its climax with a guest spot by Billy Joel, and ended on an elegiac note with an appearance by the poet laureate of lost innocence, Don McLean, who joined Garth in a version of “American Pie.” For a man who had complained for years that he was widely viewed as being more pop than country, Garth’s decision to include three pop (and no country) idols as guests seemed to confirm his desire to be considered a pan-American superstar unencumbered by regional roots.

  As much as Garth had become that icon, though, his activities leading up to Central Park proved that he was still a restless icon, one haunted by his own ambitions. As with so many high points in his career, the concert was almost completely overshadowed by turmoil in his business affairs. Two months before the show, the head of Thorn-EMI in London summarily dismissed Garth’s ally Charles Koppelman and his deputy from the stewardship of EMI North America. For Garth, the moment was cataclysmic. Suddenly there was no one whom he trusted to implement the $20 million marketing plan he had demanded. “When this record thing went down, I didn’t sleep,” he said. “I was on the phone until four in the morning to London, screaming my guts out.” When that failed, Garth decided to withhold his record until further notice, thereby undermining one of the central purposes of Central Park. As a result, in the weeks leading up to the biggest moment in his career, Garth spent much of the time in interviews explaining why a concert that was specifically designed to promote an album was not accompanied by an album. As he admitted, perhaps this turn of events proved that he thrived on controversy and was incapable of enjoying his success: “I do love being miserable,” he said.

  By Christmas, Garth had finally achieved what he had been demanding all along, namely the ouster of Scott Hendricks as the head of Capitol Nashville. For the second time in two years, Garth Brooks had flexed his muscle and demanded that as the best-selling solo artist in American history he deserved to control the hirings and firings at his record label. The new executive would be Pat Quigley, a New York transplant who admitted he knew nothing of country music and cared even less and whose sole priority was helping Garth achieve his goals, a priority the new president signalled by naming his son after his chief corporate asset. With Quigley in place and prepared to spend $25 million dollars (he boasted) to market Garth, Sevens went on to become one of the fastest selling albums of the decade, notching close to three million units in less than a month. Though the album plummeted after the holiday season, nobody noticed. Garth went on to release a boxed set in the spring and his much vaunted “live” album that Christmas. With some creative marketing and generous accounting, Garth seemed determined to reach his ultimate goal: selling 100 million records by the
end of the millennium, thereby surpassing the Beatles, leaving Madonna, Michael, and Elvis, in the dust, and assuring his place in retailing history. As an institution he seemed more on par with the corporations he so effortlessly bandied about—McDonald’s, Disney, Wal-Mart. Garth had certainly become an icon, but was there anything real about him anymore? After all these years, the question seemed to answer itself.

  While Garth grew more and more distant with every gesture, Wynonna suffered a much different fate. Her much ballyhooed comeback album, The Other Side, produced a few hits and a few more sassy numbers, but it failed to ignite any support in the increasingly limited realm of country radio. The album dropped quickly from the charts, leaving Wynonna in the homeless state she had been slipping toward for years: too brash for country, too sweet-tempered for rock, too unfocused (and unfashionable) for pop. Her professional limbo, naturally, pushed her back into the waiting arms of her mother. At Tammy Wynette’s funeral, Wynonna was introduced from the stage of the Ryman to sing, but it was Naomi who appeared from the wings, dressed in black, and claimed the microphone to give an unsolicited speech about her friend, her daughter, and, inevitably, herself. Though Wynonna might never go back to the browbeaten days of her past, she would never quite escape them either. By Fall 1998 she was even prepared to admit publicly that her mother had never liked Arch; weeks later Wynonna surprised no one by filing for divorce. In yet another stunning echo of her mother, Wynonna Judd, at age 34, would be a single mother of two. In fact, at this point it seemed almost predetermined that by decade’s end, less than ten years after Naomi had retired, the Judds would be making their long-awaited reunion—first in the studio, then on the talk shows, and, finally, on the road. As had always been the case, the two needed—desperately needed—each other to survive.

  While Wynonna had the escape hatch of her mother, Wade Hayes was not so lucky. When his career skidded, he had much more difficulty regaining control. Wade’s third album, When the Wrong One Loves You Right, was a much stronger album than On a Good Night, and its reception was stronger as well. The album made its debut in the country top ten, a first for Wade, and it produced several hits on country radio. But none of the songs had any particular staying power and, with listenership at country radio down dramatically, a mid-level artist like Wade had even more problems creating a sense of excitement around his career. Wade Hayes, once the most promising star of his class, was suddenly having difficulty standing out in a crowd of young hunks in hats. What seemed remarkable about Wade, though, was how loyal his supporters were (almost as loyal as Garth’s and Wynonna’s), throughout this fallow period. In 1997, to everyone’s surprise, fans voted him “Male Star of Tomorrow” at the TNN/Music City News Awards. And the following year, in what seemed like a typically moving example of the familial relationship that still pervaded the world of country music, Wade’s fans on the Internet stood up between his concerts at the Oklahoma State Fair and presented Trish and Don Hayes with a gift for their new dream home: a new computer. Since the money collected from the fan-written, electronic newsletter, “A Word on Wade’s World,” exceeded the cost of the computer, the fans donated the balance, $1019, to Wade’s favorite charity, Habitat for Humanity.

  Whatever else they may have in common, the ups and downs in the lives of Garth, Wynonna, and Wade seemed to embody the state of country music at decade’s end. On the up side was the legacy of Central Park. The appearance of the best-selling country artist in history in the heart of New York City was the exclamation point at the end of a ten-year growth cycle that reached its apex with the arrival of country music at the forefront of American popular culture. For Music Row, there could be no better symbol of this achievement than the silhouette of a cowboy hat-wearing, guitar-toting country singer inside a picture of a bright red apple hanging from every lightpost and screaming from every bus stop from Wall Street to Yankee Stadium. For Nashville, a community that had long viewed itself as the underappreciated stepsister of American entertainment, this was not only receiving tickets to the ball, but having the ball thrown in its honor.

  At the same time, the Central Park event coincided with a moment of great fear in Nashville. Country sales, reflecting a sluggishness that infused the entire music industry, continued to tick downward, a trend that Central Park was unable to stanch. In a way, this chilliness could be seen as a positive sign, a wake-up call to Music Row. The greed and conservatism that seemed to inflict the town would have to be replaced with greater risk and more innovative music. Nashville had captured the country’s ear during the previous decade, but in order to keep the country’s heart, it would have to continue to listen and change.

  That spirit of change was the talk of Music Row—in new crossover music from Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Deana Carter, and innovation from such stalwarts as Alan Jackson, George Strait, and Vince Gill. That spirit even seemed to infiltrate the chilliest of relationships. In a clear sign that Garth and Nashville might be inching toward an uncomfortable detente with each other, for example, the members of the Country Music Association, following a four year freeze in which they had completely ignored the best-selling artist in country history, awarded him Nashville’s highest honor, “Entertainer of the Year,” for two years in a row. In both cases, Garth, fearing embarrassment, hadn’t even shown up at the Opry House for the show. But it didn’t matter. The two camps expressed themselves with a quiet, respectful tip of the hat that, under the circumstances, might have been the best outcome of all. After years of acting like a vigilante, Garth Brooks could not so easily escape the shadow that he still cast over the town. Nor could Nashville so easily erase its resentment over the reach of that shadow. But as the sun set on country’s brightest era, everyone had reason to hope that the town and the hero could ride alongside each other into the future—with their heads held high, their dignities intact, and their minds—and ears—open to whatever came next.

  NOTES

  THE PEOPLE

  In acknowledgments, as in award acceptance 2:09 PM 7/12/2007speeches, brevity is preferred, though rarely achieved. With that caveat, I would like to thank the myriad of people who helped in the creation of this book.

  First, a note on technique. This book was researched and written over a three-year period in the mid-1990s, during which time I lived and worked in Nashville. The book was completed with the cooperation and foreknowledge of all the participants, though none asked for, nor was given, prior approval over the manuscript. The research included travel in over twenty-five states and three countries, as well as hundreds of hours of direct observation with the principals, and dozens of hours of on-the-record interviews. With appreciation for their extraordinary generosity (and patience), I would like to pay special tribute to the following people: Garth Brooks, Sandy Brooks, Colleen and Troyal Brooks, Mick Weber, Scott Stem, Karen Byrd, Maria Thompson, Lorie Lytle, and Judy McDonough; Wynonna Judd, Arch Kelley, Naomi Judd and Larry Strickland, John Unger, Pam Mathews, Roach, Tony Brown, Renée White, Jules Wortman, Toni Miller, Paula Batson, and Liz Thiels; Wade Hayes, Trish and Don Hayes, Mike Robertson, Carol Harper, Ronna Rubin, Allen Butler, Paul Worley, Scott Siman, Janet Bozeman, Bill Johnson, Mike Kraski, Debi Fleischer, Scott Johnson, and John Mullins. A special thanks to Don Cook for his friendship, support, and unusual openness in allowing me to sit in for the entire recording of On a Good Night.

  I would also like to thank the dozens of other people who appear by name in this book and to the many others who welcomed me into their lives, specifically Hazel Smith, Betty and Raul Malo, Trisha Yearwood and Robert Reynolds, Paul Deakin, Nick Kane, Jerry Dale McFadden, Frank Callari, Ken Kragen, LeAnn Rimes, Belinda and Wilbur Rimes, Rod Essig, John Huie, Cleve Francis, Charley Pride, Steve Small, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Travis Tritt, Schatzi Hegeman, Marcus Hummon, Deana Carter, Lon Helton, Len Ellis, Clay Smith, Connie Baer, Bob Titley, and Beth Middleworth. Also, Chuck Aly, Marilyn and Brooks Arthur, Jimmy Bowen, Woody Bowles, Tim DuBois, Neenah Ellis, Olivia Fox, Kevin Lane, P
am Lewis, Judy Massa, Mike Martinovich, Sandy Neese, Jim Ed Norman, Greg O’Brien, Janie Osborne, Nicki Pendleton, Jeff Pringle, Lisa Wahnish, Janet Williams, Marion Williams, Mandy Wilson, Walt Wilson, and Tom Wood. Special thanks to Bill Ivey and the staff at the Country Music Foundation, including Bill Davis, Kent Henderson, Paul Kingsbury, and Ronnie Pugh. (One note: in the interests of preserving their privacy, the names of the tabloid reporter and her sources were changed.)

  Additionally, this book would not have been possible without the deep commitment of the following people: for their hospitality, Carol and Gary Duncan; for their open arms, Ellen and Bill Pryor; for his knowledge of Nashville, Clark Parsons; for her knowledge of Music Row and relentless good cheer, Beverly Keel; for her daily fellowship and keen editorial judgment, Karen Essex; for her incomparable spirit and unflagging devotion, Nancy Russell; and for her constant support and unrivaled insight, Susan Levy. If only for the friendship of these talented individuals, my time in Nashville would have been the most rewarding experience of my career.

  Portions of this book have appeared in other places. For their editorial input and support, my thanks to Tina Brown and Susan Chumsky at The New Yorker; Andrew Sullivan and Margaret Talbot at The New Republic; Connie Rosenblum, Nora Kerr, and especially Fletcher Roberts at The New York Times; Bill Tonnelli at Esquire; John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Rich Blow at George; Phil Zabriskie at Icon; and special thanks to Annie Gilbar, Steve Root, Charlie Holland, and my friends at Live! Also, I am indebted to Sean Collins, Jeff Rogers, Noah Adams, and the entire staff of “All Things Considered” at National Public Radio.