Country Stars (March/April 2003)

Showcase Artist of the Month

from country.stars.tripod.com

6'5" Blake Shelton was born June 18, 1976. For a guy who doesn't care much about the idea of "stardom," Blake has made quite a name for himself during the past couple of years. Awards from Billboard, Country Weekly and Music Row magazines, a No. 1 smash single, a chart-topping video and a Gold record all ensued from his astonishing album debut. But for Blake Shelton, those are just happy accompaniments to his main mission, making country music that matters. 

'I'm not about some image or standing for some issue and pounding my fist on the table,' says the handsome hit maker. 'It's not about being a celebrity. All I'm about is good songs. All I want to be known as is a guy who sings for the people. I want to be remembered for singing songs that you couldn't forget.' 

He's well on his way to that goal. Shelton burst out of nowhere with his striking ballad about the answering machine, "Austin." In 2001, it spent a record-breaking five weeks at No. 1. He followed it with the heartbreaking "All Over Me." Then, in early 2002 came his riveting, rocking tale of a prison dog named Ol' Red. Its vivid video soared to the top of the charts and drove the Blake Shelton CD to Gold status last summer. 

Now comes a collection that is even more undeniable than its predecessor. In addition to confirming Blake Shelton's talent for finding great songs, THE DREAMER showcases a vocalist of stunning depth and maturity. Two years of concerts have burnished his already impressive honky-tonk tenor into an instrument of beautifully shaded emotions and textures. 

His heart-in-throat performance of the deeply touching "The Baby" has already resulted in a top-10 hit from THE DREAMER. Elsewhere on the album, Shelton displays a versatility ranging from the playful country-rock story song "Playboys of the Southwestern World" to the twanging honky tonker "Georgia in a Jug." He conveys blue-collar sweat in "My Neck of the Woods," tender meditation in "Someday" and joyous daydreaming in "In My Heaven." 

From the workingman's pride of "Asphalt Cowboy" and "Heavy Liftin" to the soaring, chesty ballads'The Dreamer" and "Underneath the Same Moon," these are the performances of a world-class country singer. 

'I certainly can hear a difference when I listen to the first record and then this one,' he admits. 'I've got a lot more confidence in my singing than I did the first time around. Plus, I?ve been on the road non-stop for a couple of years, and the more you work on a muscle, the stronger it gets. 

'I'm still not used to being in demand or to people looking at me, so I'm not that confident,' he adds. 'I'm still learning how to handle myself. I admire people like George Strait and Kenny Rogers who know exactly how to do that. That's not an easy place for me to get to, you know, to be that comfortable in the spotlight.' 

With his long dark hair, chiseled features and six-foot-five frame, Blake Shelton is a commanding presence. But he has a goofy sense of humor, an easy-going demeanor, an open-hearted candor and a plain-folks, likeable nature that are so charming that the word "star" doesn't seem part of the equation. Then again, maybe it's those very qualities that are making him one. 

Blake Shelton was born in 1976 and raised in Ada, Oklahoma. His father owns a used-car lot, and his mom had her own beauty shop. Blake was a Huck Finn kind of kid who would skip school to go fishing. But from the beginning, he was obsessively dedicated to music. He sang in talent shows as a little boy, and by the time he was a teenager his destiny was sealed. 

'I started realizing how much I loved music, and that I knew more about it than any of my friends. I couldn't understand why they didn't care that Paul Overstreet wrote some of Randy Travis's songs. Yet to me that was amazing. I read everything I could and listened to records over and over. I'd hear a certain sound and try to guess what instrument that was. I was just infatuated with it. 

'By the time I was 16 and old enough to drive, I went fishing every day after school. Nobody ever wanted to ride in my car with me, because I always had the same music on, every time. I would get stuck on an album and listen to it until I couldn't stand to hear it again. I'd love it to death - Shawn Camp, Mark Collie, Travis Tritt and especially Earl Thomas Conley. Nobody in Oklahoma had ever heard of Kelly Willis, but I was just killing her album in my car. 

'It became obvious to me that this was something I should try to do. I was already singing on a little Opry-type show, the McSwain Theater, two weekends out of every month. I'd use their band whenever I would get a gig in a bar, or go to Oklahoma City and play at the fair or something like that.' 

Songwriter Mae Boren Axton ("Heartbreak Hotel") was also a native of Ada. She met Blake Shelton on a return visit to her hometown and encouraged him to look her up in Nashville. At age 17, the new high school graduate did just that. 

'I did not know anybody else in Nashville. She introduced me to people and they introduced me to other people. And so on and so on.' During those years, singer Hoyt Axton, Mae's son, sang to Blake the song that would later figure so prominently in his young career,'Ol' Red.' 

But a long time passed before Blake Shelton could record that or anything else. He painted signs, made tape copies on Music Row and struggled to make ends meet during the seven years between his 1994 arrival in Nashville and the release of his debut disc. 

'Many times, I wanted to give up. After the third year or so, I turned 21 and realized that all my friends were graduating from college. I started thinking, 'Man, this could have been a huge mistake.' My worst fear was becoming one of those people that you see around Nashville in these bars, talking about when they had a record deal and lost it. It's just pitiful. I started thinking, 'I don't want to end up being one of those guys.? And that was about the time I met Bobby, when I was really getting down on myself.' 

"Bobby" is Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Bobby Braddock. The composer of "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," "Time Marches On" and other country standards heard a tape of Blake Shelton singing in 1997 and decided to take the youngster under his wing. Eventually he became the boy's record producer, as well as the source of some of his best songs. 

'That's when everything turned around and started clicking,' Shelton recalls. 'Just knowing that Bobby had the ability to pick up the phone and call (Warner Bros. executive) Jim Ed Norman and talk to him just blew me away. Like most songwriters around Nashville, I was already a fan of Bobby's because of his writing. Just meeting him and knowing he was interested in working with me was enough to give me hope again.' 

During the production of his debut album, Shelton got to cowrite "All Over Me" with his boyhood hero Earl Thomas Conley. Another dream came true when he sang "Statue of a Fool" on the Grand Ole Opry stage with Jack Greene. That was the same night he was presented with his Gold Record. 

'I was overwhelmed and so excited. This is the thing that I have worked the hardest for. It's OK if I don't have a No. 1 record every time, and I don't have to be front-page news. As long as I sell some records. So it was one of those moments where everything came together. If nothing else ever happens, I've got this to hang on my wall to look at and realize that I did something right at one point. But now I want to try and beat that and get a Platinum Record. That's the goal.' 

He's bought a 460-acre farm west of Nashville and on a cold November day there last November, Blake Shelton proposed to his longtime girlfriend Kaynette Williams. They'll share the spread with the chickens and turkeys the singer is trying to raise, plus the two stray puppies he adopted last year and named, of course, Austin and Ol' Red. 

'There are a group of fans who know all about me, about the farm and that I like to hunt and fish and everything. And I guess there are some who are still trying to figure me out. Here's a guy who sings a love song, then a story about a prison dog and now he's doing one about Mom dying. But that's the point. I don't want to be about an image. What I want to be about is great songs. 

'When people buy my album or buy a concert ticket, I want them to think that they got their money's worth. I owe that to the kids who are out there driving around getting excited about country music. That's all.' 

SINGLES & CHART POSITIONS
Ausitn (1, for five weeks)
All Over Me (18)
Ol' Red (14)
The Baby (1, for three weeks)