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Garth: It's my last album … honest Tuesday, November 13, 2001 The Tennessean. Peter Cooper
Back then, Garth Brooks was green as the sod that now graces Adelphia Coliseum's playing field, but he knew enough to lend an ear to Kevin Welch, a soft-spoken, long-haired fellow Okie with a publishing deal. If Brooks came for inspiration that evening, he left with something less pleasing. ''Kevin was one of the reasons I really thought about moving back home again,'' said Brooks, whose current status as the biggest selling solo act in popular music history dampens that night's desperate sting. ''He was the first guy I saw in Nashville, at Windows on the Cumberland, playing for about 20 people. I thought, 'If this guy's playing for 20 people, I don't have any business being here.' '' That was 16 years ago, or maybe 14. Certainly, no one was taking notes or preserving the evening on video. But by 1987, Brooks jumped a boxcar on Nashville's Okie Underground Railroad and wound up coming face to face with the man who had unknowingly shamed him. ''There was a knock at my door, and three or four Okies were standing there,'' Welch said. ''Most of them I knew, and those guys had been telling me about the one I hadn't met, and his name was Garth Brooks. I handed him a guitar and he played me a song, and I said, 'Man, you're fine. This town is going to be good for you.' '' Fast-forward to today, when Brooks, 39, releases his new Scarecrow album. He claims it's his last and pledges to retire at year's end, having decided he no longer wants to place career ahead of family (he and estranged wife Sandy have three children). After more than a decade of unprecedented musical success, he expects to move into screenwriting. Brooks, who uses Oklahoma as a base of operations, remains unsure whether he has any business being in Nashville. And Nashville, portions of it, at least, reciprocates his mixed feelings. Told of a journalist's plan to interview Brooks, several Nashvillians said something along the lines of ''Cool, can you get me an autograph?'' Others guffawed and suggested, ''Ask him if he's going to announce another retirement.'' ''All you can do is be honest,'' Brooks said, sitting upstairs in the offices of Capitol Records, near windows that overlook a city that has been altered by his own gargantuan sales achievements. ''I said before we announced our retirement that I have one album left. But I know that 'Garth announced his retirement and he has one album left and here it is' ain't going to sell a newspaper as much as 'Garth's retirement is bunk, and here he comes again with another record.' That's just how it is, and you learn to take the arrows. ''But anybody that says, 'Ask him if he's going to retire again: (expletive) you,'' he continued. ''Because you don't know me and you're basing your opinion on something you don't know. I don't have a problem saying that to anybody, because the people I want around me are people that will investigate something before they make up their mind.'' In fact, Brooks' retirement plans have thus far followed the scenario he described in a news conference in October 2000. In December of 1999, he went on The Nashville Network's Crook & Chase show and announced his intentions to probably retire in 2000. Then, on the morning of a Oct. 25, 2000 black-tie gathering intended to celebrate his sales and shipment of 100 million albums, he told reporters he would retire from musical life after releasing one more album, leaving open the possibility of making a duet album with Trisha Yearwood or a soundtrack record to a not-yet-completed movie called The Lamb. ''Right, but you can't promote (the soundtrack or Yearwood albums) or tour behind them,'' he said recently at Capitol. ''I'll stick to what I said. After Christmas this year, I hope if you hear from me it's about good things. It won't be at the speed or noise it's been, though. I announced I had one record left. Now I'm delivering it, and that's that. When Christmas is over, it's up to country radio if they continue to play it or not.'' Advertising tie-ins with Dr. Pepper and America Online, in conjunction with record label promotions and three one-hour television specials on CBS (the first of which airs tomorrow at 9 p.m.) will ensure that the record-buying public is aware of Brooks' finale. Closer to Christmas, a TNT movie called Call Me Claus (co-produced by Brooks' Red Strokes Entertainment) will feature more new Brooks music. Industry insiders speculate that Brooks could sell 2 million Scarecrow albums before Christmas. Indeed, the public is already showing signs of interest. Though Capitol has kept advance copies extremely close to the vest, promotional copies of first single Wrapped Up In You have been auctioned on eBay for more than $50. And tomorrow's Los Angeles concert (from which the television special will be broadcast) at Staples Center sold out in less than 30 minutes. Such ardent devotion is born largely of Brooks' compelling live shows, but also of albums that have consistently sold more than five million apiece (excluding the off-pop effort In the Life of Chris Gaines and the holiday album Garth Brooks & The Magic of Christmas). While the country radio world remains ga-ga over the more pop, less twang formula, it's interesting to note that most of Brooks' hits (Friends in Low Places, Unanswered Prayers, The River, etc.) contain traditional, acoustic underpinnings. And Brooks' recording methods are old school enough to be considered archaic on Music Row. While most Nashville hit-makers utilize digital technology that allows out-of-tune vocals to be pitch-shifted until they sound perfect, Brooks and producer Allen Reynolds use the same, basic studio ethic that Reynolds has been using since his days producing 1970s hits for Don Williams and Crystal Gayle. ''What you hear in the studio is what you get,'' said Bruce Bouton, who has played steel guitar and other instruments on most of Brooks' albums. ''We're going into a little studio called Jack's Tracks, recording to tape, putting microphones in front of amps and capturing a moment in time. Something is happening that is appealing to millions of people out there, and it all radiates from Garth.'' Brooks dismisses the possibility of using vocal tuning to enhance his in-studio performances. ''We'd never do that,'' he said. ''Our flaws are one of the things that set us so far apart. With that technology, I think the temptation is there to settle for less. And that shows up on things like our awards shows. Sometimes (such as last year's much-criticized edition of the Academy of Country Music Awards) we're blaming our awards shows for their vocal qualities, when the truth is that we may just be hearing exactly how these people sound. I would watch carefully this stuff that goes on of, 'Oh my God, she's gorgeous. Let's get her a record deal,' and somebody says 'But she can't sing' and someone else says 'Well, we'll fix that.' '' According to Bouton, Brooks' maintained his diligent work ethic on Scarecrow, normally getting to the studio before most of the musicians and leaving sometime after everyone else had departed. Brooks said the studio is something of a cocoon. Brooks said once the studio door is closed, the world stays outside. ''All of a sudden, it's just about the music. I'm there every second that we're recording, and for Scarecrow, I guess we're talking about two or three months. Sandy has been great about talking to the kids, telling them that Dad loves them and that he's trying to hopefully finish with some class something he started 14 years ago. I'm just hoping that the end result is something that moves people.'' In construction, Scarecrow isn't terribly different from Brooks' hit albums of the early 1990s. The first single, a breezy slab of Wayne Kirkpatrick-written pop that's countrified with fiddles and harmonica, is something of an aberration. Elsewhere, Brooks presents a characteristically James Taylor-ish, mid-tempo psychology study (Thicker Than Blood), a disc jockey tale with a foreboding, Thunder Rolls-like feel (Mr. Midnight), a south-of the-border scorcher (Rodeo Or Mexico), a shot of hyped-up bluegrass (Don't Cross the River) and an album-closing ballad (When You Come Back to Me Again). After a famously far-reaching song search, Brooks and Reynolds whittled possibilities down to a smaller pool. Then, Brooks began tinkering. At Garth's request, a Kim Williams/Keith Anderson/George Ducas tune called Beer Run was changed from an Ain't Going Down (Til the Sun Comes Up)-type stomper to a less frenetic, more down-home tune. Brooks invited Williams and Kent Blazy to his Oklahoma farm and worked to change lyrical and melodic aspects of the song. Amanda Williams also made additions. Later, he turned to the catalogue of his old Okie intimidator, Kevin Welch, asking for, as Brooks put it, ''a serious push.'' Eventually, Garth was drawn to two different Welch songs: Pushing Up Daisies and Life Down Here on Earth, both of which originally appeared on a Welch album released six years ago. Brooks then began cutting and pasting, taking an idea from Life Down Here on Earth (a song written by Welch and Randy Scruggs) and putting it smack in the midst of Pushing Up Daisies (written by Welch and John Hadley). Next, Brooks added some verses of his own, including a clear-eyed quatrain that references his father's struggles with apathy following the death of Brooks' mother. ''I can't say I was pessimistic, but I guess I was a little bewildered by the idea,'' Welch said. ''But he called me and asked me to come hear it, and I listened and I was just floored. When Hadley heard it, he said 'That last verse is astonishing.' Just having the idea alone is kind of amazing, but then to pull it off as well as he did … he really figured out that those two songs are both about the same thing: They're about living life while we have the chance.'' While he had a direct hand in remodeling Beer Run and Pushing Up Daisies, Brooks didn't accept a writer's credit (or the substantial royalties that go along with such credit) on either song. As for things left undone in Nashville, Brooks mentions only that he'd love to one day have George Strait record one of his songs. Welch, whose Windows on the Cumberland performance briefly took the wind from a young Brooks' sails, has another goal in mind. ''A few years ago, we had just gotten off an airplane and I was talking with Garth and Sandy,'' Welch said. ''As Garth was leaving, he said, 'I want to thank you for that advice you gave me. That thing you told me really helped me out a lot.' The problem is, I can't remember what the hell I told him. He's done pretty well with it, whatever it was, and if I could remember then I could take it myself.''
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