Lansing State Journal (Nov. 1st 2001)

Show up early tonight to hear Shelton

Then there's another marketing route: Just have your singer cut the kind of song that grabs people instantly, leaping to No. 1.

That happened to Blake Shelton, on the Warner label. He'll be in town tonight, as Nashville's newest star.

Lonestar and Jamie O'Neal had already started their tour, but now Shelton is joining them. His first stop is at 8 p.m. today in the Breslin Center.

"I've never been on a concert tour before," Shelton said by phone. "I know that people will still be coming in when I'm up there."

Or maybe not. This would be a good night for concertgoers to be prompt; if not, they'll miss one song ("Austin" ) that's been No. 1 and another ("She's All Over Me") that's on the way.

The latter is a song Shelton wrote with a friend (Mike Powell) and veteran Earl Thomas Conley.

"He's my musical hero," Shelton said of Conley. "The first song we wrote together was just terrible; I was so nervous being around Earl that I made them uncomfortable. But the second one worked out."

Still, the song that changed his life isn't one he wrote. "Austin" simply arrived on a demo tape.

This is the "Sleepless in Seattle" of country music. "Austin" is an epic story of delayed romance, centering around phone answering messages.

"I flipped over it," Shelton said. "But I thought there was no way I would get to do it."

The timing worked out: Shelton had an album ready to go; he could cut "Austin" before the big stars grabbed it.

Soon, he was pushing the song.

"I was on a radio tour," he said. "I was playing it acoustically and I was getting this big reaction. But I didn't know if that was just what people always say."

It was more than that. "Austin" was No. 1 on the country charts for five weeks; no debut single had done that since Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" in 1992.

Life has been like that for Shelton, putting him in the right places at the right times.

He's from Ada, an Oklahoma town of 15,000. "We not only have a Wal-Mart," Shelton said, "we have a K-mart, too."

There's also a college there, where Mae Axton once taught. She went on to co-write "Heartbreak Hotel," the Elvis classic. "She was able to live the rest of her life off that song," Shelton marvels.

When Axton returned to town for a tribute, Shelton was one of the opening acts. She promptly encouraged him to try Nashville.

At 17, fresh from high school, Shelton was on his own. His first job was spending two weeks painting Axton's house.

During breaks, he chatted with her son, singer-actor Hoyt Axton, who was living in his tour bus in her driveway. "He was just a cool guy to be with," Shelton said.

Hoyt would tell stories and sing songs - including one ("Old Red") that reached Shelton's first album.

More connections came up, including producer Bobby Braddock. In June, Shelton was on the road, promoting his upcoming album.

Most of his stops have been at radio stations and small clubs. Still, one music festival put him in front of 30,000 people in Richmond, Va.; then there was the recent time he sang at a racetrack in Alabama.

Here was a guy whose teen years had been shaken by the Oklahoma City bombing. "It was pretty spooky," Shelton said. "Oklahoma is a pretty quiet place where you don't expect anything to happen."

Now, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, he was singing the National Anthem to 200,000 NASCAR fans.

"It's more emotional than ever," Shelton said. "You feel like you're singing for the entire country."