Country Stars Find Their Way Back To Roots
Jun 19, 2005 19:27:01 GMT -5
Post by jacksonfan on Jun 19, 2005 19:27:01 GMT -5
Country stars find their way back to roots
By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY
In Trace Adkins' latest single, the country singer meets a guy who asks him how he could sing those twangy hillbilly songs about trains. Adkins replies, " 'Cause they're songs about me and who I am."
Back to her roots: On Mississippi Girl, Faith Hill sings about being a country gal, despite her glam image and roles in movies such as The Stepford Wives.
Even though Adkins didn't write Songs About Me, "it's happened a bunch of times," he says. "I'm always running into somebody — it's either the guitar or the hat — and they ask me that question. Then they kind of roll their eyes or say, 'Well, I don't listen to country music.' "
Though most country singers pride themselves on recording songs that speak to their own lives, current music from some of the genre's biggest acts presents a level of personal detail rare to the country charts.
• In Toby Keith's single Honkytonk U, he sings about his grandmother's nightclub in Fort Smith, Ark.
• Faith Hill's Mississippi Girl devotes almost a whole verse to her appearance in The Stepford Wives.
• Kenny Chesney's entire Be As You Are album is about living in the Virgin Islands.
"The germ of all those songs is to put those artists in the position that most of the listeners are in right now," says radio consultant Rusty Walker. " 'I came from humble beginnings to where I am.' They identify with cleaning up the bar at night and stuff like that. They're like torches of hope."
John Rich of country duo Big & Rich wrote Mississippi Girl with Adam Shoenfeld while on tour last summer with Hill's husband, Tim McGraw.
"What makes Faith Hill unique is she's a megastar, one of the biggest ones we've got, but at the same time she's this down-to-earth country girl," Rich says. "I'd never heard her ever talk to that side of who she is, and I thought she should.
"So I wrote the song, and apparently she felt the same thing."
Says Entertainment Weekly's Chris Willman: "It seems transparently designed to be her Jenny from the Block. Toby's song is about image reinforcement. It doesn't change anyone's idea of what he's about. Faith's song is about image rehabilitation. She's very successfully had this glamour-girl image, but she was a little too successful for her audience and for country radio. Now, like J. Lo, there's a need to come and say, 'I'm not this uppity snob; I'm the same girl I always was.' "
That message seems to resonate with fans. Hill's single is No. 13 in its third week on the Billboard country chart, the fastest-moving single of her career. Chesney's album has sold more than 1 million copies without a radio hit. Keith's Honkytonk University bowed atop the country album chart last week.
Their success suggests that the country audience likes its stars bigger than life yet down to earth.
Says Adkins, "When you're up there singing something that's pretty much autobiographical, there's that genuineness, that realism that strikes a chord with country fans."
© Copyright 2005 USA TODAY
By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY
In Trace Adkins' latest single, the country singer meets a guy who asks him how he could sing those twangy hillbilly songs about trains. Adkins replies, " 'Cause they're songs about me and who I am."
Back to her roots: On Mississippi Girl, Faith Hill sings about being a country gal, despite her glam image and roles in movies such as The Stepford Wives.
Even though Adkins didn't write Songs About Me, "it's happened a bunch of times," he says. "I'm always running into somebody — it's either the guitar or the hat — and they ask me that question. Then they kind of roll their eyes or say, 'Well, I don't listen to country music.' "
Though most country singers pride themselves on recording songs that speak to their own lives, current music from some of the genre's biggest acts presents a level of personal detail rare to the country charts.
• In Toby Keith's single Honkytonk U, he sings about his grandmother's nightclub in Fort Smith, Ark.
• Faith Hill's Mississippi Girl devotes almost a whole verse to her appearance in The Stepford Wives.
• Kenny Chesney's entire Be As You Are album is about living in the Virgin Islands.
"The germ of all those songs is to put those artists in the position that most of the listeners are in right now," says radio consultant Rusty Walker. " 'I came from humble beginnings to where I am.' They identify with cleaning up the bar at night and stuff like that. They're like torches of hope."
John Rich of country duo Big & Rich wrote Mississippi Girl with Adam Shoenfeld while on tour last summer with Hill's husband, Tim McGraw.
"What makes Faith Hill unique is she's a megastar, one of the biggest ones we've got, but at the same time she's this down-to-earth country girl," Rich says. "I'd never heard her ever talk to that side of who she is, and I thought she should.
"So I wrote the song, and apparently she felt the same thing."
Says Entertainment Weekly's Chris Willman: "It seems transparently designed to be her Jenny from the Block. Toby's song is about image reinforcement. It doesn't change anyone's idea of what he's about. Faith's song is about image rehabilitation. She's very successfully had this glamour-girl image, but she was a little too successful for her audience and for country radio. Now, like J. Lo, there's a need to come and say, 'I'm not this uppity snob; I'm the same girl I always was.' "
That message seems to resonate with fans. Hill's single is No. 13 in its third week on the Billboard country chart, the fastest-moving single of her career. Chesney's album has sold more than 1 million copies without a radio hit. Keith's Honkytonk University bowed atop the country album chart last week.
Their success suggests that the country audience likes its stars bigger than life yet down to earth.
Says Adkins, "When you're up there singing something that's pretty much autobiographical, there's that genuineness, that realism that strikes a chord with country fans."
© Copyright 2005 USA TODAY
