It's the Collaboration of a Decade: Garth Brooks and Five Million Fans. It's also the deal of the decade. For a suggested retail price of $13.99 you get 100 minutes of music, 25 songs recorded over seven years selected from 347 shows in 99 cities, three new songs and the closest you'll ever come to attending a Garth Brooks concert without really being there. And if you have been to one of these record-breaking concerts: listen carefully, 'cause the voice you hear on Garth Double Live just might be your own. You not only get a lot of music, you'll have a choice of packages, too, for each million released has a different cover accompanied by a different mini-tour book, featuring various events and tours: Central Park, Ireland, Reunion Arena, Texas Stadium, the World Tour II. The first million released carry a special limited edition stamp. Garth includes his reflections on the specific events, that time in his life, and shares the feelings and transitions he went through thus far in his career. Reading through the packages is like traveling through time with the best selling solo artist and the biggest concert tour in music history. And that's even before you listen to the music. That's when the real trip begins. For Garth, what the tour has been about is simple -- people. Perhaps no entertainer has ever connected as completely with his audience as has Garth Brooks. He loves them and they love him; together they form a circle of power and energy the likes of which you've never seen. To understand it, you have to go back in time. Back to when Garth Brooks was a teenager, sitting in the nose-bleed sections of arenas and wanting to feel part of the show, to feel the excitement those performers felt, not just look at it. To this day, when Garth arrives at a venue, he moves through the empty arena, sitting in first one section and then another, picturing himself a part of the audience. That's why, when he's down there on the stage, nobody is forgotten. That's why he was able to retain an intimacy with his audience as it changed from the honky tonks of Texas and Oklahoma to the world's stage. That's why, when Capitol sent the kid from Oklahoma out on a 1989 tour of Western clubs, the ads they ran were prophetic: "Garth Brooks & Stillwater. Bring 'em to your town & watch 'em burn it down!" Whoa doggies. Did they ever. And somewhere on the road from honky tonks to arenas, Garth broke down the boundaries of country music and redefined the genre. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said in a 1996 concert review: "Brooks has utterly transformed the stage values of country music." Or in the words of a Palm Beach Post critic, the show is "wall-to-wall entertainment." The overwhelming dynamic of the individual performances occurs in part because they are not choreographed. The element of surprise is what keeps every show fresh. For Garth, the surprise is the audience, different on any given night. And for the band, the surprise is very often Garth himself. Take the final night of a Canadian run a couple of years back. It had been a long, exhausting tour and the band was starting to wear down. They knew it. Garth knew it and decided to fix it. Prior to showtime he called the band together for a pre-game huddle. "I'll pay five hundred dollars in cash to anybody who can knock me down on stage tonight," Garth announced. "Impress you with a guitar lick or what?" someone asked. "No, I mean physically knock me flat on my butt," he said. That got 'em jumpstarted. And all through the night they took their best body slams much to the delight of the Canadians who witnessed it. When Garth was still standing by the final number, somebody gave the signal and they rushed to center stage, toppling him into a pile of laughing band members. (They split the cash.) It was too close to call as to who loved it best: the audience, the band, or Garth Brooks. Stillwater is an important part of Garth's show and career, and that is by his design. He's never wanted to simply be the frontman, and therein lies part of his genius as a showman. Each member plays a big role. It's Mike Palmer's eleventh year with Garth, having started playing drums for the band in 1987. On the entire Garth Double Live package, Palmer never missed a beat. "He's always been a great drummer," Garth says "But when we were in Ireland three years ago, I passed on some advice Allen Reynolds had given me and told Mike to try playing on the back side of the beat for that big fat sound. After a couple of shows he came over and said, 'Man, I wish you'd told me that seven years ago!'" James Garver is on lead electric guitar as well as percussion, banjo and acoustic guitar. "I just love it when James heads into one of his solos and all the guys out there in the audience are on their feet playing air guitar with him. -- 'cause that's what his playing makes me feel like doing, too," Garth laughs. James is also one of Garth's original band, as is steel player Steve McClure. James and Steve started playing music together back in their native Kansas, and when the two made the move to Nashville James started playing with Stillwater and brought Steve with him. Most of the bass on Double Live is provided by Mark Greenwood. (Garth's sister, Betsy Smittle plays bass on "If Tomorrow Never Comes" and "Much Too Young," the two cuts gleaned from the Reunion Arena show.) "Listen to Mark playing that kickin' bass on 'Papa Loved Mama,'" Garth notes. "It's flawless. And the performance is all the more impressive when you see us play the song, with Mark running around the stage like a wild man, all of us joking with each other. "One of the things I'm proudest about on this album is the tight rhythm tracks. Our keyboard player, Dave Gant, started out as our fiddle player. But when we added Jimmy Mattingly on fiddle, Dave could settle in on the keys. So between his keys, Mark's bass, Mike's drums and Debbie Nims's rhythm guitar, our rhythm section was locked up tight. Debbie is also a stand-up bass player, and her rhythm guitar is as good as anybody out there. "Bel Fleck came in and added some banjo on 'Callin' Baton Rouge,' and he even mentioned how the live music swelled and surged with emotion. That's where the rhythm section made for a great, solid track." The band is integral. That goes double for the audience. "I've never known an artist who loves what he does any more than Garth Brooks," says producer Allen Reynolds with a smile and a shake of his head. "Nor an artist who loved his audience more." The Baltimore Sun echoed that thought last year: "There aren't many singers who connect with their fans as completely as he did. Every corner of the crowd had the sense of being completely connected...his fans felt like part of the family." It's evident as you listen to Double Live. On the credits, background singers listed include Trisha Yearwood, Susan Ashton, Steve Wariner, Donna McElroy, Victoria Shaw, Stephanie Davis and more. There are five million more names that could have been added if space permitted. Just listen to the audience sing on "Unanswered Prayers," "The River" and "The Dance." And check out how the crowds feed the manic energy of songs like "Papa Loved Mama," "Ain't Goin' Down ('Til The Sun Comes Up," "Two Pina Coladas," "American Honky Tonk Bar Association," "The Fever" and -- of course -- "Friends In Low Places." That kind of high octane fuel makes this the quintessential road record, something to keep you alert in the middle of the night through miles of lonely highway. And who better than Garth when it comes to road records? In fact, Exxon conducted a recent survey of American drivers and discovered that most would prefer to take a road trip with a celebrity if given the choice. More of those surveyed wanted their road companion to be Garth Brooks than John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio and the cast of Seinfeld. So if you're one of those folks who think Garth would be great to have along on a road trip -- here's your chance: Garth Double Live. The recordings date back to the record-setting 1991 Reunion Arena event in Dallas, a decision Garth made at the urging of Reynolds. "I'm really glad that Allen convinced me to use songs from the Reunion Arena show," Garth says. "My first thought was that the audience energy had changed so much we should leave them out. But Allen thought that to accurately represent the show and the audience through the decade, 'Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)' and 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' should be pulled from that time period. He was right, because you can really hear how the crowd has gotten wilder as time has gone by. They know they are an integral part of the show and people who wouldn't have been jumping up and down and screaming ten years ago are doing it now." Those crowds had to be recorded carefully, with hanging microphones positioned differently in each venue. "Allen Reynolds was my ears for these recordings," Garth says. "He could be out in the audience and hear above the roar that we hear on the stage. He also had to sort through the hundreds of recordings to find the best ones. And Allen convinced me to do some studio work, things like replacing an out-of-tune guitar, add the choir to 'We Shall Be Free' --that sort of thing. We put the studio touches on when we felt to do otherwise compromised the music." Reynolds and engineer Mark Miller worked carefully with sound crews from Nashville as well as others from throughout the world. The first obstacle to face at each venue was finding a place to park the semi housing the recording equipment, laughs Miller. One of the most interesting recording behind-the-scenes stories in the seven year making of Garth Double Live involves the three new songs. When Garth decided to include the new material, he first recorded the songs in the studio. Stillwater then learned the songs for inclusion in the live show. After the road band had added its own special brand of energy, Allen Reynolds brought the studio band back in, played them the live versions and asked them to re-record the songs as close to live as possible. Therefore, two versions of the songs will be available for radio, one from the live show (the version included on Double Live) and one recorded in the studio. "For a studio dog like me, hearing these live performances is like coming full circle," says Reynolds. "We work on a song in the studio, then Garth takes it out on the road and breathes a different life into it. Between the audience and Garth, a whole new dimension is added to the music." "Tearin' It Up (And Burnin' It Down)" is a song Garth wrote with Kent Blazy and Kim Williams specifically for the Ireland tour. It's got a great big '70s arena feel -- which aptly describes much of this live album. "When I think of the live albums I've loved through the years several immediately come to mind," Garth reflects. "Frampton Comes Alive, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, KISS Alive. I love that big arena sound. And while I'd never put myself in the same category of those artists, I'll take the crowds on Double Live every time." "Wild As The Wind" is a remarkable duet with Trisha Yearwood, penned by Pete Wasner and C.J. Quarto. When the magic quality of this Brooks/Yearwood collaboration is mentioned, Garth just laughs: "Trisha Yearwood would sound magical with anybody!" The third new song, and first single from Garth Double Live has special meaning for the artist. "I've been looking for the right song to sing for my mother [Colleen Brooks] ever since I started making music," Garth says. "Somehow I could never write it myself. Then one day Benita Hill played me a song she'd written with Pam Wolfe, titled 'It's Your Song.' Benita's mother had been ill -- as had my mother. I sat down and listened to it and tears started falling. When I recorded it I almost broke down. I told Benita that the sentiment expressed in that song was what I'd wanted to say to my mother all this time and just never found the words." Perhaps that offers another clue to Garth's popularity. He records no song before its time. Nothing goes on an album or gets into a show by default. Every song, every album, every show is reflective of where he is at the time. Honesty tells. With the Reunion Arena event Garth Brooks began to redefine music television just as he had done with country music. Three sold-out concerts at Texas Stadium were filmed by NBC and resulted in This Is Garth Brooks, which gave NBC its highest-rated Friday night in more than two years (17.3 rating/28 share). NBC's Senior Vice President, Specials, Variety Programs & Late Night Programming, Rick Ludwin said: "When you're working with Garth Brooks you throw out the rule book. Whether it's his concerts, his albums or his television specials, he breaks all the rules and then breaks all the records." More television specials followed, sewing up their time slots with each airing: This Is Garth Brooks, Too! was filmed over the course of three sold-out shows at Texas Stadium in Dallas in 1993. The Hits aired in January of 1995. The behind-the-scenes documentary, Tryin' To Rope The World, featured never-before seen footage of Garth's first European/Australian tour in 1994. In December of 1996, VH1 premiered Garth Brooks: Storytellers, as part of its critically acclaimed singer/songwriter series. This intimate look into Garth and his music doubled the ratings of shows featuring rock stars including Sting, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and Melissa Etheridge. In March of '98, Garth Brooks: Ireland and Back, aired on NBC to an average audience of 15.7 million persons. And then came the concert in Central Park. Has there ever been one to top it? It was the largest crowd ever to attend a concert in New York's Central Park. Approximately a million people by official estimates. Garth -- Live From Central Park first aired on August 7th, 1997. The spectacular was the most watched and highest rated original program on HBO in 1997, beating all broadcast competition in the time period as well as 3 of the 4 networks combined! New York ratings were an amazing 51.7, according to Nielsen. The 1997 Super Bowl did not do as well. Ratings continued to rise throughout the evening of the concert, peaking at a 19.1/29 in the last 15 minutes of the concert. Based on HBO average ratings, Garth -- Live From Central Park was the most watched special on cable television in 1997. In September of 1998, Garth Brooks was named the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year. Earlier in the year he'd taken home honors including the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year, an ACM Special Achievement Award, and a Grammy for Best Vocal Collaboration, with Trisha Yearwood for "In Another's Eyes." Those are, of course, just a few of the hundreds, the thousands of awards he's won. Eighty-two million albums later, and the songs are still as fresh as when he started. When asked how he does it, he thinks about it a while. "The audience keeps me fresh," he says. "But there's another factor. When I step out on stage each night, there's a thought running around in my head. What if something happened to me? What if this was the last show I ever played? Is it the one I'd want to be remembered for?" What that means is that every night on stage, Garth Brooks is giving the performance of his life.
