The Tennessean (Jan. 8th 2002)

Thanks to ‘Austin,’ Shelton’s career (and answering machine) is lighting up

The song that launched Blake Shelton to public recognition contains little common sense, though his nomination for favorite new country artist at tomorrow's American Music Awards show is entirely sensible.

Austin, his debut single, offers a truckload of bad advice, yet rolled its sentimental way to five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart this past summer. Shelton became the first artist to accomplish that with a debut single since Billy Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky Heart in 1992.

As a result, recognition has begun to pile up. Radio & Records magazine named Shelton "country music's breakthrough artist of the year," and he was nominated for new country artist of the year at the Billboard Music Awards.

Even though the Billboard awards were already held (Shelton did not win), the AMA nomination was actually announced first, and it left the 25-year-old singer a bit befuddled.

"I never really thought much about the American Music Awards," he confesses. "What I mean by that is that it never crossed my mind, I guess because it's all (styles of) music, and as a country artist, when I think of awards, I always think of the CMAs (Country Music Association awards) or the ACMs (Academy of Country Music awards) or somethin'.

"But," he continues, "it's a big deal, and it's easily the biggest thing that's happened for me, as far as my career, at this point."

The nomination reflects the way in which a single song can connect with the public, and literally generate a career. Austin is, after all, the only hit Shelton owns to date.

In the course of the song, a broken-hearted man uses his answering machine to transmit his undying affection for his ex. He changes the outgoing message frequently, leaving details about his life, including what he's doing and when he'll be away from the house. And for nearly a year, he ends the message with a note to the woman who moved to Texas: "P.S., if this is Austin, I still love you."

The public bought into its heart-tugging notions of endless commitment, and for even a skeptic, it's tough not to be moved at least occasionally by its optimism.

Yet, Shelton freely admits telegraphing your schedule on the answering machine is an invitation to trouble.

"If I'd have called, I'd have been the first person over there robbin' that guy's house," Shelton laughs.

It makes the storyline seem a bit cut off from reality. And yet, the singer insists, the song is based on actual events.

"I tell you exactly who would leave a message like that on their machine," Shelton says. "It's a guy named Ash Underwood that lives here in Nashville."

Just as the song goes, Underwood's girlfriend moved to Austin, and he tagged his outgoing messages with a profession of his love. Songwriter David Kent called the house one day and thought the tactic - ill-conceived as it might have been - was the basis for a song. He asked Underwood to help him write it. When Underwood said no, Kent turned to Kirsti Manna to co-write it.

Now that Shelton has recorded Austin, Underwood may have had second thoughts. He risked getting robbed, declined to collaborate on a lucrative hit song and, unlike the song's happy ending, didn't even get the girl.

Shelton was starting to believe that he, likewise, would not get the shot he craved. He had signed with Giant Records and languished on the label for several years without seeing any music released. Amid rumors of the label's demise, he severed ties with most of the agents and managers around him in 2000, and in the first part of 2001, Austin finally saw the light of day.

He barely made it under the wire. Giant did, in fact, close in April, but with Austin showing early promise, Shelton was shifted over to a sister label, Warner Bros., where the album came out in July, debuting at No. 3 on the country album chart.

After the previous years of nail-biting, his success has tasted sweet, particularly because he had no idea just how big a challenge the business could be when he first moved to Nashville in June 1994. A native of Ada, Okla., Shelton relocated just two weeks after high school graduation, on the advice of former Ada resident Mae Boren Axton, the now-deceased Music Row maven who wrote Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel.

Axton proved a valuable calling card in Nashville. She helped him secure appointments, and eventually, he gained some impressive associations. Bobby Braddock, who wrote the George Jones classic He Stopped Loving Her Today and Toby Keith's current I Wanna Talk About Me, signed on to produce him. And Earl Thomas Conley, who amassed 18 No. 1 country singles in the 1980s, emerged as a co-writer.

"I think his records were always a little bit ahead of their time," Shelton says of Conley, "and more importantly to me, he was probably one of the more emotional singers that I've ever heard in my life. There were songs he's recorded, like What I'd Say and That Was a Close One, that I swear to God it sounds like he's cryin' while he's singin' it. That's a hard thing to do ... to capture an emotion like that in the studio."

Shelton also used the success of fellow Oklahoman Garth Brooks as motivation.

"I remember when the Ropin' the Wind album came out (in 1991), people skipped school for a couple hours that morning to go buy the record," Shelton recalls. "When they got to school, they were already talkin' about cut No. 3 and No. 4, whatever they were. It was a huge, huge deal.

"I wanted to be Garth," he continues. "My first guitar I bought was a black Takamini, like he played on his first television special. I've still got it. I've got two of 'em now. I can't imagine how he wouldn't be an inspiration for anybody who has become a singer recently, or aspires to be one."

It's not Brooks, however, to whom Shelton has been compared. A recent headline on the country.com Web site asked "Is Austin Blake Shelton's Achy Breaky Heart?"

The story did not suggest that the songs have similar qualitative merits. Instead, it raised the possibility that, like Cyrus, Shelton may struggle to reach this plateau in his career again. Shelton seems unfazed by that idea.

"I'll be lucky to ever have a song that's as big as Austin again, if I have a two-year career or a 30-year career," he says. "Those are rare songs."

In fact, it's songs themselves, rather than the concept of stardom, that seem to motivate Shelton most. He admits that associates have tried to get him to cut his long, curly hair and take on more of a mainstream appearance, but he refuses to compromise himself just to land TV talk show slots.

At the ACM Christmas party in Burbank, Calif., he demonstrated his passion for the music more directly. When fellow artists such as Trick Pony, Phil Vassar and Cyndi Thomson took the stage, he sang along and seemed to know every word of their songs as well as he knows his own.

When he took the stage for two songs, Shelton offered the obligatory Austin, but, despite the hundreds of times he's performed it, he sang it as if it were brand new.

He did not use the other number to promote his current single or album. Instead, he performed a Braddock composition, The Snake Song, simply because it had a worthwhile, unexpected storyline.

"This is what I wanted to do, and I wasn't gonna give up," Shelton says, underscoring his musical obsession. "Whether I became somebody who was a homeless guy livin' on the streets of Nashville 20 years from now, I was still gonna be tryin'. There wasn't anything else that I really have been interested in doin' with my life."

Of course, now that he's made it, he keeps a busy schedule. And to find out if he's actually home, you'll need to check his concert itinerary and the awards show schedule. His answering machine won't give you any clues.