GoUpstate.com (Oct. 5th 2001)
Blake Shelton’s star on the rise MUSIC: Fame still a shock to boy from Oklahoma
Blake Shelton’s life reads like a made-for-TV movie. But it might be hard to convince him that he’s the star.
Even though “Austin,” the single release off “Blake Shelton,” his debut album, shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts following its July release and camped there for five weeks, tying a decade-old record, he’s still sometimes taken aback by all the attention he’s getting. It seems there’s a lot of that naive 17-year-old, the one that left Ada, Okla., for Nashville, Tenn., two weeks after he graduated from high school, still in the 25-year-old singer-songwriter. It’s for sure he hasn’t forgotten the uncertain years away from home and family, fighting homesickness while he prepared to take advantage of an opportunity that might never come.
When his big break finally came last year, Shelton was under contract to Giant Records. He had just finished his first album, working with famed producer and songwriter Bobby Braddock, and “Austin,” a plaintive ballad added to the album just before its release, was beginning to get air time. It looked like he was on his way. That’s when Shelton hit the road to promote his song. Bruce Logan, operations manager of WSSL-FM and WESC-FM, remembers how excited Shelton was when he arrived in Greenville and how much everyone was rooting for this eminently likeable young man. Instead, the moment the singer dreamed about for seven years turned into his lowest point. While in Greenville, he got a call from Nashville telling him that record company, Giant, was folding. “I was devastated,” Shelton said, thinking back to how deeply disappointed he was. “That’s the only time I considered packing it in and going back to Oklahoma. I thought, all that work on the album, and it’s going to be for nothing.” The way the music business works, Warner Brothers, Giant’s parent company, had the option of picking up the artists under contract to Giant. But Shelton knew most would be released.
As it turned out, Logan said, Warner Brothers representatives called around to radio stations, asking their opinion about the artists in Giant’s stable. It was no surprise when they decided to keep Clay Walker and Neil McCoy, both proven artists. Then they chose one more --Blake Shelton. That decision has made both Shelton and Warner Brothers very happy, because any country music fan that hasn’t heard “Austin” must have been out of the country for a while. And many in the record business expect the debut single to be only the first of many hits for this young man that sings straight from the heart. The trip from Ada to No. 1 began when Shelton’s Uncle Darrell, the only member of the family that was musical, taught him to play the guitar. They’d practice chords and hang out together, making music when they weren’t out in the woods hunting and fishing.
At a lanky 6 foot 5, the self-proclaimed “country boy” felt pressure from his friends to play sports, but there just wasn’t enough time in his life for games. While his friends were playing football on Friday nights, he was playing gigs. And when they were practicing in the afternoon he was off in the woods somewhere. “Growing up, as soon as I got home from school, I’d grab my fishing pole and I was gone till after dark,” Shelton said. “It’s in my blood. If I’m not doing music, I’m in my peaceful place, somewhere out in the woods.” That probably accounts for why his favorite song on the album isn’t the one that has made him country’s hottest commodity. That would be “Ol’ Red,” a cover of an old country song that Hoyt Axton sang for him when the aspiring young singer/songwriter hung around his tour bus during his early days in Nashville. Seemingly fans have the same reaction, according to the delighted performer, because he gets almost as many audience requests for “Ol’ Red” as he does for “Austin.” “It’s everybody’s dream to have a story like that to tell. An old huntin’ dog that tracks down people. I just love it,” said the country boy from Ada.
Admittedly there hasn’t been much time for him to retreat to that “peaceful place” since “Austin” hit big. As he tells it, he went from “standing around with nothing to do” to not even having time to go home to see his family. “I’m spread out pretty thin now,” Shelton said, but it’s clear that he’s exactly where he wants to be. Just reading the list of places he’s booked to perform could wear a person out. In October, he’ll hit Indiana, Oklahoma, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Arizona and Utah, in addition to his Spartanburg date. Doing double duty on Oct. 21, he’s set to sing the national anthem at the NASCAR Winston Cup Series EA Sports 500 at the Talladega Superspeedway before heading to Chattanooga where he’ll perform that night. And he’s still waiting for the details on his up-coming tour with Lonestar, scheduled for launch in November.
Adjusting slowly to success, Shelton is still awed by his “heroes.” He lists Earl Thomas Conley, Travis Tritt, Hank Williams, Jr. and Dan Seals as musicians that inspired him. And even though he has evidence to prove it, he has a hard time believing that he co-wrote “All Over Me,” a second single set for release Oct. 8, with Conley. “If you can imagine meeting your hero,” Shelton said of Conley, “it was an even more incredible experience to sit down and work with him. And now just to know that my name will be next to his forever. It’s just awesome.” If those savvy about the music industry don’t miss their bet, “All Over Me,” a song that Logan thinks will be “huge,” should give Shelton’s fans another opportunity to send his traditional country sound to the top of the charts.
“Radio is so excited about Blake,” Logan said, describing his sound as “pure country.” It’s that sound that led WSSL and the Advance America Piedmont Interstate Fair to book Shelton for an Oct. 12 performance. And despite rumors to the contrary, Logan wants to dispel the myth that he has some sort of crystal ball. “I wish I could say that we did,” he said, “but the fact is that we just had a feeling when we heard ‘Austin’ that he was different and was going to ring with audiences.” Roxanne Schledwitz, executive director of the Piedmont Interstate Fair Association, doesn’t care how it happened. She’s just glad to be the beneficiary of so much good luck. “Blake was at No. 6 when we signed the contract,” she said, explaining that the people at WSSL assured her that he was “up and coming” and would hit No. 1. “When he did, we knew we had hit it big.”
What’s most important, Shelton believes, is sharing with audiences the songs that he delivers with what has been called “achingly tender sincerity,” and he promised, “if you come out to see me in concert, just know that you’re going to see a country show.” In fact, as they were putting together the album, “Same Ol’ Song,” the cut that laments the country music industry’s movement away from traditional country, emerged as the theme song. “The goal became to find songs that were real and were different, to get back to what I felt like made country music popular to begin with.” It took determination for a teenager with a dream and a guitar to stick it out on his own so far from home and finally reach the top of the charts. To his credit, Blake Shelton hasn’t lost sight of what got him to where he is. “When I step up there and I break into ‘Austin’ and the audience finishes it for me, that’s a great feeling. You feel like they’ve not only heard your music, but they’re into it. That’s the best you can hope for as a singer.”