Garth Brooks

• Born: February 7, 1962
• Place of Birth: Tulsa, Oklahoma

AMERICAN COUNTRY SINGER-SONGWRITER AND GUITARIST

Country-music singer-songwriter Garth Brooks promoted his crossover approach by performing his music in 1970s-style rock shows. His enormous popularity resulted largely from his accessibility to his fans and humble, Everyman image. He is renowned as the best-selling solo artist in American history, with several multiplatinum albums and sales of more than 149 million units.

The Life

Troyal Garth Brooks was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Troyal Raymond Brooks, an oil company draftsman, and Colleen Carroll Brooks, a country singer who had recorded with Capitol Records during the 1950s. As a student at Oklahoma State University, Brooks performed with lead guitarist Ty England in a club band. Brooks graduated with a degree in marketing and headed to Nashville to begin a career as a performer. Soon, however, he returned to Oklahoma. Brooks married his college girlfriend, Sandy Mahr, in 1987, and they returned to Nashville, where he signed with Capitol Records.

For the next three years, Brooks’s career skyrocketed, and he was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in October 1990. In 1993, however, his image began to take a downturn when, against the wishes of his management, he positioned himself as an activist for world peace. In August 1997, Brooks performed an enormously successful concert in Manhattan’s Central Park that was attended by hundreds of thousands of fans and broadcast live by Home Box Office. This concert provided a well-timed boost of Brooks’s image and career, effectively promoting the release of a new album.

Unfortunately, the glow of this success faded with his brief, unsuccessful foray into the film industry. Brooks and his wife divorced in 2000. He then went into retirement until, in 2005, he released a DVD that included a duet with singer Trisha Yearwood, whom he married in 2006. He remained on a hiatus from recording and touring in order to raise his three daughters. Brooks made a successful comeback in 2009, when he became a resident artist in Las Vegas.

In 2014, Brooks embarked on a three-year-long world tour that by 2017 had sold more than six million tickets, more than any other North American artist. In 2017, he launched his own satellite radio channel. After spending time the following year writing new music, he toured stadiums in North America beginning in 2019. While that tour continued into early 2020, dates ultimately had to be rescheduled due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Still, Brooks went on to release the album Fun, which debuted in the top ten of the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, later that year. In January 2021, he sang "Amazing Grace" at the inauguration ceremony for President Joe Biden. In 2022, Brooks announced that he would be performing in another concert residency, this time at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. The artist then released his fourteenth studio album, Time Traveler, in November 2023.

The Music

Brooks introduced pop-rock influences to country music by combining the country styles of George Strait and George Jones, the folk-rock approach of James Taylor, and the pop-rock musical styles of Elton John, Dan Fogelberg, and the bands Kiss, Styx, and Boston. In so doing, he brought a whole new audience to country music. His stadium-arena spectaculars were and are customarily attended by tens of thousands of people, for whom Brooks has intentionally kept the ticket prices low. He further engaged his audiences by wearing a headset microphone, facilitating his active and energetic movement around the stage while breaking away from the previous tradition in country music whereby singers had performed in a stationary position behind a microphone.

Garth Brooks. In 1989, Brooks released his self-titled first album to immediate success. Its style combined a nod to traditional country in the single “Much Too Young (to Feel This Damn Old)” with the sensitivity of “If Tomorrow Never Comes.” This album catapulted Brooks’s crossover reputation from country into pop, particularly with the release of “The Dance,” the single that effectively tripled album sales, making Garth Brooks the best-selling country album of the 1980’s.

No Fences. Brooks’s second album was released to great acclaim in 1990, selling 700,000 copies within its first ten days and staying at the top of the country charts for twenty-three weeks. As a result of Billboard’s new method of tallying sales through SoundScan, No Fences moved from number sixteen to number three on the pop charts. The first single, “Friends in Low Places,” had been unofficially released to a local radio station, spurring the enormous popularity of the album through its rollicking, honky-tonk, humorous music and lyrics. Another hit, “Unanswered Prayers,” again demonstrated Brooks’s talent for sensitive reflection.

The album’s most controversial song, “The Thunder Rolls,” turned out to be the greatest asset to the sales of the album because the accompanying video generated media interest in the depiction of spousal violence and was briefly taken off the air by Country Music Television (CMT) and The Nashville Network (TNN). Since the song’s subject matter was familiar to many, the video was returned to the airwaves and gained great popularity. By 1993, No Fences had sold in excess of ten million copies; as of 2006, it was certified as diamond, at seventeen million sales, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Ropin’ the Wind. Released in 1991, this was the first country album to debut at number one on both the country and pop charts, with an unprecedented four million prerelease orders. Unlike the hit singles “What She’s Doing Now” and “Shameless” (originally written and recorded by Billy Joel), which continued Brooks’s themes of love and conflict between a man and a woman, the popularity of “The River” stemmed from its positive lyrics, urging people to risk believing in themselves. The combination of Brooks’s abilities as a consummate performer and his album sales in the tens of millions garnered superstar status for Brooks with the release of this album. Courted by the mass media, he was featured on the covers of major magazines such as Time, Forbes, and Entertainment Weekly.

The Chase.The Chase debuted in 1992, but it only sold five million copies and did not rise above number twelve on the charts, a level of performance much lower than that of his previous works.

Fresh Horses. Although Fresh Horses, released in 1995, topped at quadruple platinum, like The Chase it did not meet with Brooks’s previous successes. This slump in his album sales reflected a negative change in Brooks’s personality, as he became increasingly arrogant toward the media. The single entitled “The Change” shows this development; its lyrics, unlike his previously inspiring messages, came across instead as cynical and defensive.

Sevens.This chart-topping album was certified platinum within two months of its release, eventually rising to ten million units sold (10x multiplatinum) by late 2006. Brooks recorded "In Another's Eyes," one of the album's many singles, as a duet with Yearwood that earned them that year's Grammy Award for best country collaboration with vocals. Sevens also contained five other singles, three of which would become hits.

Scarecrow.Scarecrow was the last Brooks studio recording before his retirement. It debuted and peaked at number one on the Billboard Top 200 and Country Albums charts.

Man against Machine. Brooks's first studio recording of new material since Scarecrow, Man against Machine represented a modest success for the phenomenal artist, with a million sales within two months. Reviewers found the album endearing but dated, with a 1990s sound that failed to reflect changes within the genre.

Gunslinger. Going platinum in one month of its release in 2016, Gunslinger proved relatively popular among listeners but met a tepid reception among critics. Disappointed reviewers called it "flat" and "ordinary."

Fun. Featuring the single "Dive Bar" with Blake Shelton, Fun was released in late 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Musical Legacy

Brooks drew from his own background as a suburban American who grew up listening to 1970s pop and rock but developed a desire to return to country, a sentiment shared by millions of baby-boomer Americans between the late 1980s and early 1990s. A high-energy performer, he became interactive with his audience in concerts, even to the point of crowd-surfing while singing. As a result of Brooks’s success in bringing country music to a huge new audience, he lent enormous support to the country-music scene and industry.

Brooks has won numerous awards, including two Grammys, in 1991 and 1997. He has also received the following Academy of Country Music honors: single record of the year – artist (1990), top male vocalist (1990, 1991), song of the year (1990), entertainer of the year (1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998), video of the year (1993, 1994), Jim Reeves Memorial Award (1994), Gene Weed Special Achievement Award (1997), artist of the decade (1998), fortieth anniversary milestone award (2005), the first Crystal Milestone Award (2007), Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award (2010), and the fiftieth anniversary milestone award (2014). The Country Music Association awarded Brooks its Horizon Award (1990), music video of the year (1990, 1991), single of the year 1991, album of the year (1991, 1992), entertainer of the year (1991, 1992, and 1997), and vocal event of the year 1993. In 2020, he received the Icon Award at the Billboard Music Awards.

Principal Recordings

ALBUMS: Garth Brooks, 1989; No Fences, 1990; Ropin’ the Wind, 1991; Beyond the Season, 1992; The Chase, 1992; In Pieces, 1993; Fresh Horses, 1995; Sevens, 1997; In the Life of Chris Gaines, 1999; Garth Brooks and the Magic of Christmas, 1999; The Magic of Christmas: Songs from Call Me Clause, 2001; Scarecrow, 2001; Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences, 2013; Man against Machine, 2014; Christmas Together, 2016; Gunslinger, 2016; Time Traveler, 2023.

Bibliography

Appell, Glenn, and David Hemphill. American Popular Music: A Multicultural History. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Higher Education, 2006.

Crouch, Ian. "Garth Brooks: Country Music’s Square, Liberal Dad." The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2014, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/garth-brooks-country-musics-square-liberal-dad. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Feiler, Bruce. Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, Wade Hayes, and the Changing Face of Nashville. New York: Avon Books, 1998.

"Garth 101." Garth Brooks, G.COM.LLC, garthbrooks.com/#garth101. Accessed 30 Oct. 2017.

Kingsbury, Paul, Alan Axelrod, and Susan Costello, eds. Country: The Music and the Musicians—From the Beginnings to the Nineties. New York: Abbeville Press, 1994.

Kreps, Daniel. "Garth Brooks Releasing New Album 'Time Traveler'... Exclusively Through Bass Pro Shops." Rolling Stone, 25 Oct. 2023, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/garth-brooks-new-album-time-traveler-bass-pro-shops-1234862466/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Millard, Bob. Country Music: Seventy Years of America’s Favorite Music. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993.

Paulson, Dave. "Garth Brooks Interview: On New Album 'Fun,' Singing 'Shallow' and the CMAs." Tennessean, 20 Nov. 2020, www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2020/11/20/garth-brooks-interview-new-album-fun-shallow-and-cmas/3778351001/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Starr, Larry, and Christopher Waterman. American Popular Music: The Rock Years. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.