USA: Country musician Garth Brooks continues to attract attention with new projects despite his 2001 official retirement

Country musician Garth Brooks is walking a blurry line between announced retirement and the occasional performance or new initiative. Brooks, who has been claimed the best-selling solo artist of the 20th century in America, retired in 2001 after the album "Scarecrow" to raise his children in Oklahoma, announcing at that time that he would put a stop to his touring and production of records until his children had grown up. Recently though the singer was welcomed heartily when he performed recently at the November 15th Country Music Awards at New York City, where he played his new single "Good Ride Cowboy", which is a tribute to Brooks' friend and rodeo performer, the late Chris LeDoux. Then there's his new deal with Walmart whereby his new "Garth Brooks: The Limited Series" boxed set will be available exclusively at the giant retail store as well as Sam's Club locations. The set contains more than five hours of music on five CDs with several new, previously unreleased recordings as well as some classic favorites. There's also a 90 minute DVD with exclusive footage. The single "Good Ride Cowboy," is included in the set. Meanwhile, Walmart has claimed that the "Limited Series" has been one of their biggest and best-selling pre-order media titles on their website. "When Walmart approached us, to go into the vault and bring out what we call the lost sessions, these, past recordings to life, we were in the middle of pulling that album together for them, when some buddies came in, one in particular, with this line - Good Ride Cowboy and, as a tribute to LeDoux, we all looked round the table and said 'you know, when we retired we vowed we wouldn't record any new music and we wouldn't go on tour and I'm going to break my promise if I go in and record this song,' so I took the responsibility on my own shoulders and I did break my word and went in," said Brooks, speaking about his new single and its genesis. Brooks doesn't tour anymore and though he's happy with his retirement decision, he does miss the buzz of performing. While reflecting on his decision to retire and look after his children, Brooks spoke about his current love, country music superstar Trisha Yearwood, and how she had changed his life. He proposed to her earlier this year. "It's just ironic that I fall in love with a woman that is the love of my life and then she goes out on tour and I stay at home with the babies which is totally flip-flop from how I spent the 90's," said Brooks. "Then on top of that my babies go down every night at about nine, nine-thirty, that's when they go to sleep, and oddly enough that's when Showtime was for most of my life. So, the house gets quiet right around when Showtime starts, so you start to feel your stomach kind of get you know kind of antsy, and you start to sweat a little bit and you get ready to run, and the problem is that the tour's not there, so you don't get to run." When asked whether he would take up touring again just because he missed it so much, Brooks replied that he just didn't think that he would be able to split time between being a father and performing as a musician. "Touring is eating and breathing and living and smelling the stuff twenty-four hours a day and that's what it deserves and that's what it should be, and it needs that attention and the truth is, anybody will tell you as a father or a mother to children that you just don't have that time," he said. "I don't want to do it on the weekends. It'd be like trying to be a father on the weekends." Even as the world discusses the country titan's on and off retirement and waits to see whether he will make a comeback, his song "Good Ride Cowboy", released in October is doing well in sales and reportedly jumped to No. 18 on the Billboard Country Charts in its first week.

ITN Source | December 21, 2005

Tags:. .enough. .claimed. .totally. .raise. .november