The Springfield News-Leader (April 1st 2005)

On tap: fireworks, a rising music star

Country singer Blake Shelton headlines a free show Sunday at Jordan Valley Park

Springfield's big baseball weekend is capped off by an Oklahoma singer who hit a home run with his last single and is about to swing for fences on his next.

Blake Shelton, fresh off the success of his No. 1 country single "Some Beach," performs a free concert Sunday night in Jordan Valley Park. Local singer-songwriter Candy Coburn opens the 7 p.m. show.

"Some Beach," which hit the top of the country charts in January, finds Shelton imagining himself basking on a sunny shoreline to help ease the pain of a bad day.

"There's cold margaritas and hot senoritas waiting there," he sings.

The beach is a place that's becoming more and more familiar to country fans recently. Lifelong beach bum Jimmy Buffett put fresh wind in his commercial sales by tapping the country genre recently, and industry superstar Kenny Chesney's latest album is a laid-back tribute to island living.

Shelton doesn't really consider "Some Beach" a beach song per se, but he says its theme of getting away -- even if for a few imaginary moments -- strikes the same nerve as Buffett and Chesney.

"I think it's a response to a trend," he says. "With Sept. 11 and the war, there's been so many songs about really heavy subjects, (about) the attacks and the war and, man, we've just been bombarded with that stuff."

Many of those have been great songs with powerful messages, Shelton says, but eventually they start to weigh on the listener.

"After a while you just don't want hear about it, especially in your car," he says. "You just want something fun to sing along with and don't have to worry about."

That's why country fans are responding to the easy-going sound of Buffett and the rule-bending attitude of the new wave of "outlaw" acts like Gretchen Wilson or Big & Rich, he says.

"People are out to have fun when they hear music again," says Shelton, who first broke on to the country scene in 2001 with the hit single "Austin." His new album, "Blake Shelton's Barn and Grill," is his third release.

The free concert, sponsored by the city, caps a weekend of sold-out Cardinals baseball in Hammons Field. It also kicks off a series of free shows at center city parks that includes a mariachi band from Springfield's sister city Tlaquepaque, Mexico and showcases by up-and-coming local artists before some movies at the Outdoor Cinema series in Founders Park.

The fireworks following Jordan Valley Park concerts are larger than last year, says the city's director of public information Louise Whall, because they're being shot off from behind the stage instead of the east side of the amphitheater.

The display will still be set to music but "the blasts should be bigger," she says.

Shelton hopes to create some fireworks of his own with his next single, "Goodbye Time," which was a Top 10 hit for the late Conway Twitty in 1988.

"I didn't set out to just record a Conway Twitty song," he says. "He's one of my heroes obviously, and I love his music. (But) I just felt like that particular song, 'Goodbye Time,' never really got the credit it deserved the first time around. And my generation, for the most part ... has never really heard that song."

So far 2005 is shaping up to be a good year for Shelton, and he wants to keep the ball rolling.

"It's exciting to me that people are responding better to this album than any of my other ones," Shelton says. "I feel like I really know what I want to do right now."