Springfield News-Leader (April 12th 2002)

Shelton connects with country fans

Country newcomer Blake Shelton may have ripped up the country music charts last year with the hit ballad “Austin,” but there was a time not so long ago when he was just another kid who had packed up his hopes and his guitar and moved to Nashville. 

The Ada, Okla., native didn’t simply move to Music City on a whim, though. He had a little encouragement from another Oklahoma native, Mae Boren Axton, who penned Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” among other songs.

The city held a celebration in Axton’s honor and Shelton, then 17, was part of the entertainment. It wasn’t long after Axton told him she thought he could land a record deal that Shelton left for Nashville.

In fact, Axton gave Shelton his first job there, although it had nothing to do with music.

“For my first two weeks in Nashville my very first job was painting Mae Boren Axton’s house,” says Shelton, who plays Midnight Rodeo tonight. “Spending time with her, eating lunch with her while she talked about the industry and what to expect.”

Chances are Shelton, now 25, never expected his very first single to top the Billboard Hot Country chart for five weeks. 

In fact, “Austin,” a tune about two former lovers who get a second chance at love via their answering machines, almost didn’t make it onto his self-titled album because Shelton wasn’t sure if he wanted to record it.  

After playing though the tune a couple of times at home, though, he changed his mind.

“‘Austin’ was one of the last songs we found for the album,” he says. “We thought we had the album finished and had it turned in, and that song came across and it was just exactly what we needed.”

The song connected with country fans because everyone wants to be an unforgettable part of someone else’s life, Shelton says, even if that someone says goodbye and moves to another city.

“A lot more people than I ever would have realized have been in a situation similar to that,” he says. “And everybody hopes that someday they’ll find somebody that loves them enough (to) wait on them while they go through a period like that in their life.”

Shelton says his goal with the album was to record songs that were somehow different from the usual Nashville fare, but still able to draw a connection with listeners. 

He’s hoping the rest of the tunes (four of which he co-wrote) will continue to touch audiences.

“There’s a song on the album called ‘Same Old Song’ which was kind of a watermark for the rest of the album,” he says. “It talked about country music not being emotional anymore and how it doesn’t talk to the people anymore, and I wanted to record an album that did.”