Though it has grown considerably since my school days,
Dickson, Tennessee was definitely a rural country town in 1990. Still, even
being just an hour to Nashville, you were looked down upon to an extent if you
were a country fan. You might get away with listening to Kenny Rogers, Alabama,
or Hank Williams, Jr., but that was about it – even in 1990.
Then came Garth Brooks. The Oklahoma native blew upon the
scene for the first time in the spring of 1989 with the ultra-traditional “Much
Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” and quickly became one of the most talked
about newcomers in quite a while. His follow-up, “If Tomorrow Never Comes” was
the next-to-last number one of the 1980s, and he kicked off the new decade with
“Not Counting You” and Tony Arata’s thought-provoking “The Dance.”
In the fall of 1990, Brooks released what would become his
biggest hit to that point in his career – a rowdy, hell-raising epic titled
“Friends In Low Places.” The song, which incidentally also appeared on Mark
Chesnutt’s debut album Too Cold At Home, became the calling card Brooks used to
jump into the A-List of Country stars, where he has stayed ever since. The song
was one of the best kiss-off songs in the format’s history – all about a man
who showed up intoxicated at his former lovers’ wedding. If you did or didn’t
drink, it didn’t matter, chances are you felt like the outcast that the woman
made the man feel in this song – and the fans latched on, as the record became
a number one hit for a month in the fall of 1990, leading the way to the
release of Brooks’ sophomore album, No Fences.
Though Brooks’ presentation – particularly with his live show
– was cutting edge, his music – particularly that of his first three albums was
country. Follow-up singles “Two Of A Kind, Workin’ On A Full House,”
“Unanswered Prayers” and the blockbuster “The Thunder Rolls” helped to
establish Brooks as THE hitmaker of his time.
But, No Fences didn’t end with just the songs you know. He
tipped the hat to the 50s with a cover of “Mr. Blue,” waxed melancholy on the
masterpiece “Same Ol’ Story” and delivered a stone-cold country performance for
the ages with “New Way To Fly.” I heard somewhere that George Jones was going
to cut this a few years after Garth. I wish he had, as he could have sang the
heck out of it. As it were, Brooks didn’t do that bad with the song. Simply
said, there wasn’t a miss on the entire album. While one could make the
argument that Ropin The Wind, his 1991 follow-up to this disc, might have been
a bit better (if not a bit more pop-influenced), the truth is that if you
wanted to have a well-rounded musical collection, you needed both discs. But,
if you leaned more toward the traditional sounds, No Fences was a pure classic.
Join me on Wednesday, September 2, as we look back on an
album that changed the format – literally. No Fences is the featured album of
the week as part of “The House That Built Me” musical series on “Crazy Chucky’s
Classic Country Corner” on WNKX 96.7 FM in Centerville, TN. Showtime is 1pm,
and as always, the program is brought to you by Tennessee Properties. So, go
find your Brush Popper or your Mo’ Betta, and go back in time with me…..to one
of the greatest Country albums of all time, celebrating its’ silver anniversary
this year….
