CMT Blog: Gary Allan

When you start your set with a song about dirty motel sex, people notice. So that's what Jaron and the Long Road to Love did Wednesday night (July 21) at Chicago's House of Blues. He also spent some time on old stuff from his Evan and Jaron pop days ("Crazy for This Girl") and a Tears for Fears cover ("Everybody Wants to Rule the World"). But the majority of his show was just Jaron on guitar, piano and vocals. Doing the song he's now become famous for, "Pray for You," and a few other new ones like "That's Beautiful to Me" and "Meantime Girl" from his debut country album. And in between songs, there was the charm that sets him apart from the artists who take the stage and just go through the motions. As he introduced "That's Beautiful to Me," he told the crowd, "When you first start going out with someone, everything is so cute. But after a while, it's all so annoying. But if you stick around, it gets cute again."

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Do you ever get a line from a country song embedded in your mind, not necessarily because it's catchy but because it is just so fitting in so many situations? That's how I feel about this line from Lee Brice's "Love Like Crazy": "Never let your prayin' knees get lazy." It is such a simple thought (always remember to pray), but when I hear it I just think it's so genius that I say it out loud at least 10 times a day and share it with family and friends. But for some reason, the song itself is taking its sweet time to climb up the charts. Billboard is reporting that it is making the slowest climb ever into the top 10 because the tune has been on its way for 46 weeks. It is apparently the fourth-longest chart run in the 66-year history of Billboard's Hot Country Songs. Gary Allan's "Right Where I Need to Be" took 48 weeks back in 2001. Someone at Brice's record label even admitted, "This song was declared dead at least a dozen times, and here we are inside the top 10 and setting records." Brice himself said, "Hey, I'll take it any way I can get it."

Way to go, Gary Allan. Way to cement your status as the eternal bad boy, making it nearly impossible to stop streaming this thoroughly intense video for "Get Off on the Pain." That sinister smirk on your face tells me that you do, indeed, love the long shot and the left-out lost causes. And that alone is sexy as hell, but then you throw a rodeo into the mix and it just keeps getting cooler. The only thing I would've done differently in this video was cast a different bull rider. This one looks nervous and fidgety, like a guy who doesn't NOT get off on the pain. Allan himself would've been perfect for the role of a cowboy who is not afraid of a little bull.

New videos from 10 different artists, making up CMT Big New Music Weekend, were screened this week by the CMT New Music Video Evaluation team. They saw new works from Lady Antebellum, Reba, Alan Jackson, Danny Gokey, James Otto, Jessie James, LeAnn Rimes, Tim McGraw, Trace Adkins and Gary Allan. Ten very different songs and video treatments. Let's roll 'em.

Artist: Reba
Video: "If I Were a Boy"
Director: Eric Welch

Beyonce made this song famous with a spectacular performance on this year's Grammy show. And it still sounds good, especially with the added mandolin.

Panelists' comments: "That's a great song." "Beyonce and Reba both know what's a good song." "The more I hear that, the more I love it."

Artist: Lady Antebellum
Video: "Stars Tonight"
Director: Adam Boatman

Lady A's latest video was shot during the group's performances at several different venues and includes much crowd footage and backstage scenes, complete with wacky poses from the group.

Panelists' comments: "You know, I still like everything they do." "Good melodies and good singing can do that for you." "I like behind-the-scenes videos. They let fans know what it's like backstage."

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Sixteen locations. That's got to break some kind of record for Number of Locations Used to Shoot One Country Music Video. But for Alan Jackson's new video for "Hard Hat and a Hammer," the director really wanted to capture the working man at work. So off they went to foundries, shipyards, paper mills, fire stations, railroads, hardware stores, taxi stands, port authorities and farmers markets all over Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia. It sounds like Jackson didn't want to leave anyone out. Which reminds me a little bit of the all-inclusive nature of his "Good Time" line-dancing video. This new video premieres Friday (June 18) on CMT and CMT.com along with eight other brand new music videos from Lady Antebellum, Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Trace Adkins, LeAnn Rimes, Gary Allan, Danny Gokey and James Otto during CMT's Big New Music Weekend.

The new issue of People Country hits newsstands on Friday (June 18) and this special edition is a must-read for any fan of country's real good men. They've named Tim McGraw as Country's Hottest Guy, but beyond that honor, they've also made a list of Men We Love and it includes Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Luke Bryan, Joe Nichols, Chris Young, David Nail, Jake Owen, Blake Shelton, George Strait and Chuck Wicks. But don't buy it just for the pictures of those guys. The stories are good, too. Like when McGraw, who is now down to 178 lbs., confesses that "I can't have anything on me when I sleep" and says his favorite sexy song is Santana's "Samba Pi Ti."

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Right now, Liz Rose is probably best known for being the oft-thanked songwriter on Taylor Swift's team. But Swift isn't the only one who has Rose to thank. She's been a Nashville songwriter for years, and American Songwriter has an interesting story about her back story -- how she moved from Texas to Music City in 1994 and how she didn't really feel like she could call herself a songwriter until Gary Allan recorded and released her "Songs About Rain" in 2003. She's also written songs recorded by Tim McGraw, Trisha Yearwood and Bonnie Raitt. What I find so cool about Rose is that, if my math is correct, she didn't start this career until she was in her late 30s. And when she and Swift started writing together, like on "Tim McGraw" and "Teardrops on My Guitar," there was a 30-year age difference between the two of them. But music transcends numbers and even generations. Looking back on those first hits by Swift, Rose says, "I was so proud of her. It's so great to watch her grow up and with such grace and handle everything so well, and she's not changed a bit."

Gary Allan called into the syndicated country radio show, Big D & Bubba, last week and talked a little bit about his music and touring. But then the conversation went in a way different direction. Like how Allan saw the whole Sandra Bullock's husband's cheatin' scandal coming. "Why's everybody shocked about the Jesse James thing? Jesse James was married to a porn star, so it seems to me like Sandra Bullock bought into the circus," he said. Then he says it again, "He was married to a porn star! I mean, so there's some kind of extra love for sex there." But that's not all they cover. The radio hosts do talk to Allan about tattoos and how crazy it is for Allan to see his name tattooed on his fans. "Every show, I see a tattoo that's my name or my bronc logo. ... That's pretty weird too seeing my tattoos on other people," he says. Note to self: Never get a tattoo of a blond lady with gigantic wings inked inside right forearm before an Allan show.

New guy! New guy! New guy! I love finding artists that reignite my passion for country music. And that is exactly what Randy Montana has just done. His "Ain't Much Left of Lovin' You" is a must-download, and you'll hear what I mean right from the get-go. So after hearing it, I did a little searching, and now I know why he has such a gift. His father is songwriter Billy Montana, who wrote some little country songs you might know, like Garth Brooks' "More Than a Memory," Sara Evans' "Suds in the Bucket" and Jo Dee Messina's "Bring on the Rain." Randy himself has a kind of Gary Allan/Jason Aldean raspy country voice. But oddly enough, his MySpace page lists influences such as not-so-country folks like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jackson Browne, the Wallflowers, Counting Crows and Bob Dylan.

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I'm a longtime admirer of John Hiatt's music, so it was a real treat for me to interview him for this feature story on his new album, The Open Road. I'm going to lead this playlist of new music with the chug-a-lugging title track. Most of the other music here comes from independent labels, but I couldn't resist adding Blake Shelton's "Delilah." To me, it sounds like a long-lost '80s country song. Shelton says he wrote it when Miranda Lambert walked away from the bus one afternoon, and her dog, Delilah, just stared out the windshield until she came back, not even caring that Blake was around. Carrying on with the "heading out" theme, check out Easton Corbin's "Leaving a Lonely Town" and Gary Allan's "We Fly by Night," too.

"The Open Road," John Hiatt
"Delilah," Blake Shelton
"Leaving a Lonely Town," Easton Corbin
"We Fly by Night," Gary Allan
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