Reuters (Nov. 1st 2008)
Country singer Shelton returns to Okie roots
Not long ago, fans would come to Blake Shelton concerts to hear pure country music. But this year -- most recently on a mini-tour he completed with girlfriend Miranda Lambert -- that has changed. Now, he says, fans "also want to hear some jokes and wisecracks." And he's been happy to oblige.
Beyond his music and personality, the association with Lambert has helped shape Shelton in fans' minds -- even if it was her simultaneously released "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" that kept his 2007 album "Pure B.S." out of the No. 1 country spot, and even though, Shelton says, "musically she and I don't see eye to eye."
He's the obsessive sort of traditional country fanatic who'll "spend $300 a week at Ernest Tubb Record Shop" when he's in Nashville. And where Lambert swears by Ashlee Simpson, Shelton would usually rather listen to John Conlee. "Startin' Fires" concludes with the pair dueting on a spare waltz about teen deflowering called "Bare Skin Rug," with crickets chirping in the background.
Shelton calls his new album, "Startin' Fires," which Warner Bros. Nashville will release Nov. 18, his "most autobiographical album."
A couple of years ago he moved back from Nashville, "because it's way too big for me," to his native Oklahoma; after four albums done mainly with Bobby Braddock, the new set is Shelton's first produced by Warner Bros. senior vice president of A&R Scott Hendricks, a fellow Okie.
Shelton says he's excited "to be singing about tractors, about deer on the timberline." The hilarious back-to-the-land opener, "Green," might be the first country number ever to mention carbon emissions. And tracks like "Country Strong" and "Home Sweet Home" have more small-town soil beneath their fingernails.
But several songs also show the singer maturing into a more romantic side. Partly, Shelton says, this is just a result of choosing material that puts more emphasis on his vocals. Until he went top 10 country with "Goodbye Time" in 2005, "I was always the story-song guy," Shelton says. "But now it's about singing it and delivering it and selling the passion."