Mainstream Country Comforts

[MikeHunt]

Mainstream country comforts

Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney emerge from Garth’s shadow

BY SEAN RICHARDSON

HE LOVES THAT BAR: on most of Shock'n Y'All, Toby ditches the war talk in favor of wine, women, and song.

THERE GOES HIS LIFE: Kenny's When the Sun Goes Down makes up for what it lacks in spontaneity with heartfelt material.

At the end of the 1990s, Garth Brooks saw his sales numbers fall back to earth after a historic stretch of commercial dominance. That was good news for male country singers like Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw, who soon emerged from Garth’s shadow as superstars in their own right. All three of those performers remain regulars at the top of the charts, but in recent years they’ve been matched — and sometimes outmatched — by fellow crooners Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney, both of whom toiled away in relative obscurity while Garth was busy conquering America. Right now, they’re at the top of their game: Toby’s Shock’n Y’All (DreamWorks) debuted at #1 when it came out in November, and Kenny’s When the Sun Goes Down (BNA) did the same when it hit stores earlier this month. Both albums rock like Garth, twang like Willie Nelson, and party like Jimmy Buffett. In other words, they’re a guaranteed good time for country and pop fans alike.

Over the last few years, Toby Keith has emerged as one of the most controversial figures in country music, for two reasons: his feisty pro-war anthem "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" and his feud with the Dixie Chicks. But he’s not all bluster, as the easygoing Shock’n Y’All smash "I Love This Bar" attests. Believe it or not, the tune starts off as a celebration of diversity — "We got yuppies, we got bikers" — and it gets mischievous only when Toby hints that his girlfriend plays second fiddle to his favorite watering hole. It’s also more honky-tonk than pop, with a beery sing-along at the end and a playful video in which Toby dodges flying bottles at a barroom gig. (The Toby Keith party hits New England this weekend: he’s playing Saturday at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut and Sunday at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland.)

Like most of his previous hits, "I Love This Bar" was written by Toby himself. The Oklahoma City native’s career got off to an auspicious start back in 1993 when his debut single "Should’ve Been a Cowboy" topped the country charts. On the four hit albums for Mercury that followed, he showed good pop instincts and a mushy side that might surprise fans of his current work: he once even sang a duet with Sting. Eager to reach the next level of stardom, he switched to DreamWorks for 1999’s How Do You Like Me Now?!, on which he hit his stride with the help of producer James Stroud (Tim McGraw). All the fuss over "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" wasn’t the only reason 2002’s Unleashed pushed him to a new commercial plateau: on tunes like the raucous Willie Nelson duet "Beer for My Horses," Toby brought uncommon grit to mainstream country.

Shock’n Y’All has moved three million units to date, and Toby just scored another #1 country hit with "American Soldier," one of the few songs on the disc with 1) any political implications to speak of; and 2) a mood better suited to Sunday morning than to Saturday night. There’s no sticking it to Osama, Saddam, or anyone else here — just a steel-throated tribute (one that cynics will turn off around the umpteenth time Toby belts out the word "American") to all the devoted family men and hard workers in the armed forces. Osama gets his soon enough on "The Taliban Song," a clever, funny, and profane ditty about a "middle-aged, Middle Eastern, camel-herdin’ man" who longs to escape Taliban rule.

On the rest of the album, Toby ditches the war talk in favor of wine, women, and song; most of the last rocks like prime 38 Special on a hot summer night. "Whiskey Girl" kicks into overdrive with a greasy biker-bar riff worthy of the wild woman of Toby’s dreams: "No Cuervo Gold margaritas/Just ain’t enough good burn in tequila/She needs something with a little more edge and a little more pain." The roadhouse riot continues on "Time for Me To Ride," which wrenches itself free from a faithless lover with a swampy Hendrix-style groove. The funk blowout "Sweet" is probably the first song by a country star that includes both clavinet stabs and the word "babelicious."

The second half of Shock’n Y’All gets off to a lackluster start with the generic Ronnie Dunn collaboration "Don’t Leave, I Think I Love You," but things brighten up from there. On "Nights I Can’t Remember, Friends I’ll Never Forget," Toby rounds up two old college buddies for a harmony-laden night on the town: "We drank a few cold ones, then told a few old ones/And sang another verse to the song." "The Critic" makes fun of pop-music journalists for bringing home a mere "$20,000 after taxes," even though the working stiff in "American Soldier" is pitied for not being able to pay his bills. Still, it’s an engaging piano-bar blues with enough goofy one-liners to rival "The Taliban Song." On the closing "Weed with Willie," Toby ends up even more in the bag than he did with his whiskey girl and his old college buddies: "In the fetal position with drool on our chins/We broke down and smoked weed with Willie again." No "Beer for My Horses," it’s nonetheless another colorful statement from the closest thing to an outlaw at the top of today’s country charts.

Like Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney is just now entering his second decade as a major-label act. A Knoxville native, he hung around the middle of the country charts for ages before striking platinum with his fourth album, 1997’s I Will Stand. That effort marked his first collaboration with producer Buddy Cannon, and it also yielded his first pop-crossover hit with the piano-driven Alcoholics Anonymous testimony "That’s Why I’m Here." Never as prolific a writer as Toby, Kenny gets the bulk of his material from Music Row, though he did pen two of his own greatest hits, "How Forever Feels" and "You Had Me from Hello." On 2002’s No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, he took his career into the stratosphere by adopting a photogenic new persona: chiseled Jimmy Buffett for the Avril Lavigne generation.

If Shock’n Y’All is a great party album for bad boys, then When the Sun Goes Down is its good-girl counterpart. On the disc’s smash lead single, "There Goes My Life," Kenny puts the beach bash on hold for a while in favor of a steel-guitar tearjerker that follows a father-daughter pair from conception to adulthood. His hearty drawl is a perfect match for the emotional tide of the chorus, and the song hits a well-orchestrated power-ballad climax when daddy’s little girl leaves home at the end. "She had that Honda loaded down/With Abercrombie clothes and 15 pairs of shoes," he sings as the band prepare for the track’s intimate homestretch. (Fans will want to load up on tissues when Kenny hits the road on a tour that’s expected to stop by the Centrum in Worcester at the end of April.)

Kenny’s "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems" is the "Margaritaville" of the 2000s, a woozy ode to sunstroke and alcohol poisoning set to effervescent island rhythms. "When the Sun Goes Down," the album’s brand-new second single, is a sequel that one-ups the original with a double dose of pop-crossover appeal: a close approximation of the tropical guitar hook from Sugar Ray’s "Fly" and a guest appearance by Kid Rock’s buddy Uncle Kracker. Kracker has some fun with the title of the Kenny standard "She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy," and the two singers pass the time trading barbs on the beach until they’re ready to hit the bars. Kenny’s head is in the Florida Keys again on the lightweight "Outta Here," on which he calls for a road trip and sounds just a little bit too comfortable frolicking around in Music Row fluff.

But the disc manages to avoid falling into a spring-break stupor, because it turns out Kenny knows how to rock — he’s something like John Mellencamp to Toby’s Ronnie VanZant. One of the album’s four original compositions, "I Go Back," is a loving survey of his favorite pop songs that ranks as the most visceral and poignant tune here. The memories come fast and furious: "Jack and Diane" is a high-school crush, "Rock ’n Me" is a college party, "Only the Good Die Young" is an old friend. "Keg in the Closet" goes back to the Mellencamp well for the disc’s hottest riff, and the track’s liner notes salute Kenny’s beloved fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha (other significant contribution to pop music: John Tesh). Not that you have to be a frat brother yourself to chuckle at the song’s opening line: "We had a dog named Bocephus living in the front yard."

The remaining two Kenny originals on When the Sun Goes Down bring things to a mellow close as they reaffirm his status as an incisive writer. "The Woman with You" pays romantic tribute to strong women who give up their professional dreams to raise a family; "Some People Change" applauds the heroism in overcoming deep-seated problems like racism and alcoholism. The album as a whole is an airtight production that makes up for what it lacks in spontaneity with heartfelt material. Kenny may play strictly by Nashville rules, but his beach-bum-with-a-conscience vibe is so affable that it ends up shining right through the commercial façade.

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