OK- I'm diggin' Andy Griggs new single

[Garthmedic]

"If heaven" is a sweet, wonderful song. Anybody else think so?

--spud--:)

[MtnGirlCrazy4Garth]

ABSOLUTELY!!! :D

Being a big Andy fan, I've had his new album since the day it came out... and that is definitely one of my favorite... if not my favorite... songs!!!

I haven't been listening to the radio much lately, just CD's... I had no idea that he had released 'If Heaven' as a single... that's great, very glad to hear it!

There's just SOMETHING about his voice! I absolutely love listening to him. Knowing the story of how he got into music, it's amazing to me... I can't imagine him NOT singing. Sad circumstances, FOR SURE... but he was definitely meant to bless us with that voice of his!!! :)

Thanks, Spud, for bringing this up... I love a good reason to talk about Andy! :D (He's pretty cute, and sweet, too! ;) Hey, it's all good.) :D

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot... this is at the bottom of his 'thank you's, in the liner notes:


As always, I dedicate my music to my late brother, Mason Griggs. You're still tattooed in my heart and you're still the biggest impact on my life. "If heaven were a tear, it'd be my last one and you'd be in my arms again." I love you Mason.

[wmcinnis]

I agree Spud......this is a great song.:)
-Susan-

[ProducerJ]

It IS a great song Spud!

Andy told us in an interview that If Heaven was the centerpiece of this album, and he is so proud that he was able to record it.

J.

[Paula]

I don't have his CD and haven't heard it on the radio yet (at least I don't think I have). I'll have to pay attention. Can anyone hum a few bars?;)

Paula

[GriggsGarthGirl]

If heaven were a town, it would be my town, on a summer day in 1985...

[ProducerJ]

Hey Amy --

I knew you'd poke your head in here sooner or later! I have a new Andy EPK on DVD to send you once I get around to watching it. (I did send you the If Heaven single didn't I? If not, I have that for you too. . . somewhere. . . )

Feel free to hound me to watch it over the Turkey weekend and get it sent to you!
J.

[MtnGirlCrazy4Garth]

Yo, Amy!!! :)

I was waiting for you to post to this thread... not sure how I missed it last night! Good to see ya'! I knew you couldn't resist a thread about wonderful, adorable Andy! ;)

Just wanted to let you know, again, how much I've enjoyed the gospel CD. When we were on our trip, we usually didn't go to church on Sundays, but I liked at least playing some of my Christiain music, if we were on the road or hangin' out at the trailer... and, more often than not, it included Andy. I love that CD!!! :D Thanks again.

How ya' been? Seen Andy in person since the last time we 'talked'? I would love to see him again... well, you know how I feel about him! :D


If heaven were a town, it would be my town, on a summer day in 1985...

Love the song, but everytime I hear THAT line, it just reminds me that in the summer of '85 I was VERY pregnant for the first time... feeling VERY FAT for the first time... hot, uncomfortable and miserable!!! :( (Guess I didn't learn, though, cuz I proceeded to have three more children between the middle of July and the first part of September! ;)

Do you know EXACTLY what the summer of '85 means to Andy? Was it RIGHT before Mason died? Or was that quite a bit later? Just curious.

Welp... ttyl! ;)
DeeDee

[GriggsGarthGirl]

You just made my day! Woohoo! I didn't even know Andy had a DVD out. That's too cool! Hope you get to watch it soon ;) If you did send If Heaven it hasn't arrived yet, but I'll let you know if it shows up any time soon. Thanks so much for thinking of me! You rock :)

[ProducerJ]

Hmm.... well I know I haven't sent anything in the past week or so... and I know I've seen the CD recently... which means... it's here in the stack, somewhere. Wanna come clean my office? :D

The DVD was a bit unexpected... it came from the label with no explanation. It's a "DVD Profile" and has a quote from Andy on the front (and a full color picture). "I came to Nashville for one reason: to touch somebody the way I have been touched by music." It runs 11:50.

It's the kind of thing they'd send out when CMA or ACM balloting is going on, but it came after CMA voting was over. So I'm not sure what the angle was, but it should be good!

J.

[GriggsGarthGirl]

Hey DeeDee, I never miss the chance to talk about Andy--lol.

Happy to hear that you're still enjoying "I Cried Holy"--it's a great CD. Hope Andy gets a chance to release more of those songs to a more national audience someday. I know he'd like to. I was pretty surprised there wasn't a Mason song on "This I Gotta See" but I know we'll hear more Mason music in the future. At least I hope so.

I had a pretty busy Andy summer last year--saw him in March, May, twice in July, 3 times in August and once in October (whew!). And I've already got tickets to see him again in January--this time with Sara Evans & Brad Paisley. Think he might get sick of me pretty soon ;)

When I hear that line it reminds me of breakdancing and neon colors--lol. Scary. I don't know if there's any personal significance to Andy but I do know the original version by Gretchen Peters says 'summer day in 1965' so it was probably just the easiest way to change it to be believable for Andy's age. Andy's father passed away in 1983 (I believe) and Mason died in 1991 so it doesn't directly connect to either of them...

By the way, there's a clip of the two of them (Mason & Andy's father) in the new video for If Heaven...it's at the very end of the video. Right before the clip there's a photo of Andy & Mason and a very sweet dedication at the end :) Very sweet.

[GriggsGarthGirl]

I guess any promotion is good promotion ;) Or they're getting a jump start on next year's awards--lol. Never too early...lol.

[MtnGirlCrazy4Garth]

OMG, girl, you've seen A LOT of him, haven't you? Okay, I'm officially GREEN with envy, now... guess I better start figuring out when and where I can see him here in California! ;) Just curious, when and where did you see him in October? I don't know WHY I'm doing this to myself, but if it was anywhere near where we were, on our trip, I'll just have to be sad for a while. ;)

Well, despite my slight shade of *you know what color*, just wanna let you know how VERY HAPPY I am, for you, that you've gotten to see him so much... I would LOVE to hear more, if you ever have the time to 'chat' about it! :)

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, about no Mason songs on the new album. :( Maybe it's just time for him to 'spread his own wings' a bit and be 'just Andy', who knows.

Oh, yeah, and January... with Sara and Brad??? OMG, that is such an awesome combination, I would LOVE to be able to see that!!! :D You go, girl! (Well, I guess you will, huh? ;) ) Have a great time at that one!

Thanks for filling me in on that 'summer of '85' thing, and the info on the new video, too! Okay, now I HAVE to get my Dish Network back up and running!!! ;) I'm sure I've missed a lot of cool stuff since we shut it off... but it's nice not to have the TV on so much, and it helps us save a few bucks for other things, especially after our vacation and with the holidays coming up. Maybe after we recover from Christmas! :)

Well, hey, good talkin' to ya' again... like I said, if you get a chance, and don't mind 'chattin', I wouldn't mind at all, if you wanna 'bend my ear', telling me all about your 'Andy Adventures!' :D hehe... catch ya' later!

[GriggsGarthGirl]

If you have a high speed internet connection you can watch the video at CMT.com--http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/griggs_andy/videos.jhtml I have a slow dial-up connection so it's more of a slide show then a video for me, but I've heard it works for most people. It's been over 2 and a half years since Andy's last video, if you can believe that!

My favorite Andy Adventure from this summer was when my sister & I flew to Minnesota to see Andy on his birthday weekend, which also turned out to be his CD release weekend, couldn't have asked for better timing :) Anyway, we flew in to Minnesota and drove diagonally across the state of Wisconsin to see Andy in Ironwood, MI--a town in the most western part of the Upper Peninsula. The town was a million miles away from everywhere and whenever we see Andy he asks if he's in New England or how close he is to New England and since we were nowhere near New England we knew he'd be more than a little surprised to see us there--lol.

It was a fair show, bring your own chair/blanket type of thing, so we were able to get a spot right in the front row off to the left hand side of the stage. A couple songs into the show Andy looked right at us and we saw him do a double take--lol. It was very cute. Then when he was singing "How Cool Is That" he looked right at us and bugged out his eyes as he said "She's the last girl I thought I'd ever see here"--now how cool is that ;)

At the meet and greet after the show when my sister got up to him he said 'there she is' and had to tell us that he saw us during the show 'off to the right' and asked if we drove there and we said we flew and he told us how long it took them to get up there from Nashville and that Ironwood, MI is about as far from Nashville as you can get, as from anywhere as you can get--lol.

I went to get a meet and greet photo of my sister & Andy--I was using her digital camera and the flash wasn't going off. I could tell it was taking the photo, but there was no flash. Andy kept telling me to take another one and I told him I thought I got it, but took a couple more. Well, Andy either saw the red light on my side of the camera or the small screen reflecting on my glasses because he said "it's flashing on her side" and started laughing--lol. Kristi took the camera and changed the setting and it worked perfectly for the next photo. (She had it on a slow shutter speed mode to get a photo of a merry go round earlier in the day). So when it worked fine for the next photo he looked at me and said "Amy, you ain't no photographer--Kristi is" and something about the fact that I needed to go to photography school--lol. Funny, funny, funny--lol. That kinda sounds mean, but it was in good fun.

I was next and I had our birthday present for Andy and when I gave it to him I kinda threw it on the table and said "here this is for you" with more attitude then I had intended, but he deserved it ;) We gave him a denim jacket where we had added a highway man tour t-shirt to the back of it. We stole the idea from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy--lol. When Andy looked in the bag he said "It's something to wear" and started pulling it out. It was a chilly night and he had on a sleeveless shirt so he was quite eager to put the jacket on. So eager that he didn't look at the back of it. He was unbuttoning the front when his manager noticed the back of the jacket and said "Andy, you're gonna love that" and when Andy finally turned it around to see the back he just stopped everything and you could see the tears come to his eyes. He read all the names--Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings and asked where we got it. We told him we made it, got the shirt and the jacket and put them together. Then he said "my children's children will wear this jacket" which was really sweet and he put the jacket on. I never expected to see him in it so that was really cool.

We talked a bit about the new CD. He asked us if we liked it--silly question. He said he was really excited about it and proud of it and that RCA had hinted that it was doing well. I actually asked if they had any numbers yet and Andy said the lowly artists are the last to know--lol. He thanked us for the jacket again and his manager said "This is the best gift he's gotten...this week" lol.

We saw Andy again the next night in Rochester, MN and when he came out for the meet and greet he had the jacket on again. And when I got to him in the meet and greet line he said "Hi, what's your name?" and I said "uh, Amy" and he said "I'm Randy, nice to meet ya" and then said "I'm just kiddin'" and gave me a hug--lol. It was cute--lol.

It was a really fun weekend. Plus we got to check out the Mall of America--lol.

The show in October was in Lowell, MA--only 4.5 miles from my house! Closest Andy's ever been and probably ever will be--lol. Very cool.

I have photos from all my Andy shows...well the ones from this summer anyway...at http://photos.yahoo.com/thisigottasee

[MtnGirlCrazy4Garth]

Oh, Amy!!! :D What an AWESOME, AWESOME, PRECIOUS story... very sweet times spent with a very sweet man... I am SO HAPPY for you!!! :)

I would comment more specifically on stuff... but I'm gonna have to wait until another time, it's been a LONG day, and I am absolutely SPENT... but I didn't want to not post, at all, after you took the time to share your story... and what a story. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for being willing to share... you don't know what that meant to me... I feel so warmed and blessed by it... I can go to sleep and maybe dream of sweet days like that! :)

Okay, I gotta be tired... I think I'm sounding a little 'loopy'... but it WAS a sweet story and deserves at least some 'loopy, syrupy' comments, dontcha think, ya'll?

TTYL, Amy. Thanks again. :)

DeeDee

[MtnGirlCrazy4Garth]

Hey Amy! :)

I finally got the chance to come back in here and re-read your story and look at some of your pictures... awake. ;)

I can see why you said it was worth it, flying up to Michigan and all, you had an AWESOME time with him there, didn't you?

I love the part about him including you guys in the song 'How Cool Is That'... that was neat! That's one of Davina's favorite songs, btw. Davina's my oldest daughter.

And the part about the jacket... wow, girl, you guys DID GOOD! I wish I could be that creative, when it comes to the gifts I give Garth, but I'm just not that way, I guess. Sounds like it really 'hit the spot' with him... that's very cool for you AND for him!!! And, seeing him wear it the next night... HOW COOL IS THAT??? ;) Congratulations on a great trip! :)

That was cute, too, when he asked your name and said 'Hi, I'm Randy, nice to meet ya'!' How fun!

AND... I LOVE the picture of the two of you together, right after giving him the jacket, what a GREAT shot!!! :D You both look so cute together! ;) You know, I was kinda mad at him when he cut his hair short, I thought it looked better long, but he is GORGEOUS in that picture of you two... I guess I was wrong about the hair! Either that or he's just gorgeous no matter what! ;) hehe... yeah, I think THAT's it!!! :D

Thanks, again, girl, for sharing your story... and the pictures... they really made my day... AGAIN! ;)

DeeDee :)

[GriggsGarthGirl]

I'm kinda partial to the longer hair myself ;) But Andy seems to cut it short each time he has a new CD/video coming out. Never quite understood why, but as long as he lets it grow out from time to time it's all good--lol.

My sister & I have a lot of fun coming up with unique gift ideas for Andy. A couple years ago we made him a quilt with each block representing something in his life. At one of the shows this summer he told us the quilt was on his couch. And let us know that another gift we gave him was on a coffee table that his father built :) It's fun giving gifts when you know they'll be appreciated and remembered. Gotta come up with some ideas for next year--lol

[MtnGirlCrazy4Garth]

Amy ~

Very :cool:! You and your sister sound like VERY creative people... I wish I had that in me... oh, well, I'm just glad that Andy has such GREAT fans like you guys, to bless him with such neat gifts! :D

DeeDee :)