Split Personality

I was flipping throught the channels last night on tv and was suddenly greeted by Garth Brooks singing. It turns out he was a guest performer in a Don McLean concert that is being used by PBS to try and lure new members and grab their money. I watched as Garth sang a slow guitar ballad , being accompanied on the guitar by McLean. I loved the way it sounded, and unfortunately I do not know the name of the song. (If anyone saw this performance and knows the name, please share it with me.) Then the show ended with Mclean, Brooks and Nancy Griffith performing the classic "American Pie".
The verse that Griffith sang was quite possibly one of the most frightening things I have ever seen or heard. Yikes!

Anyways, I found myself wondering aloud "What is Garth up to these days?" I had heard he was taking some time off to spend with his children, which is admirable, but I wonder if there were any plans for a comeback tour or anything. So today I perused his website, but found nothing of substance. Anyone heard anything regarding Garth?

I also remember when Garth began performing as the person of Chris Gaines. He sang rock songs and contemporary AC style music, all in promotion of the upcoming album "In the Life of Chris Gaines - Greatest Hits". The concept was that this musician had previously released and toured extensively, with many hits under his belt. This would all lead up to the release of a movie, which would follow the life of Chris Gaines and tell his story. I remember thinking that I would be interested to see that movie when it released, but also remember never hearing anything more about it.

So today I looked it up. "The Lamb" has, to the best of my knowledge, never been released. It was suppose to release in late 2001 or 2002. I wonder what happened to it? It had this huge media build up, with all the weird concerts of Garth in character singing untraditional "Garth-style" songs. I think I even recall seeing Chris Gaines on Saturday Night Live. Yep, here is the summary. I also seem to recollect an actual television appearance with multiple songs being performed.

All this to say that I wonder a lot about weird stuff. I guess this fascinates me so, because at the time it made me pause and contemplate either the genius or insanity of Garth for doing what he was doing. I understood what he was trying to do, but I also knew that some country music fans would never follow him to that place and might even castigate him for it.

In the end, I suppose it adds up to a bunch of nothing. However, I will say that I enjoy many of the songs off of the Chris Gaines album. Having performed a bit myself, I will say that the range of music performed by Garth on this album is quite amazing. He stepped well beyond his comfortable, country voice to assume a raspy, gutteral and sometimes falsetto laden sound that upon first hearing will remind you nothign of Garth Brooks. Occasionally, you might hear him on certain notes or words, but all in all, he does sound like a completely different person. Vocally, that is incredibly hard to successfully do.

So today I have pondered a lot of things about Garth Brooks. Why?
All because I saw Garth on television for 7 minutes last night.
And that's the power of an image children.
And the power of a recognizable voice singing recognizable songs.
And the power of a memory of a unrecognizable face and voice singing "different" songs.

I like Garth's music, and I think he is one of the most talented stage performers in recent memory. He did things in a huge way. He took big risks. He sang big hits. And now he's all sorts of in my head.

Thanks Garth/Chris.