For Garth Brooks fans who have been biding their time to hear his new album Time Traveler on Amazon Music, the wait is over.
Brooks originally released his 14th studio album Time Traveler last year as part of his seven-disc boxed set “The Limited Series,” which was sold exclusively at Bass Pro Shops. But now fans can stream it for the first time.
The collaboration-rich10-song collection includes Brooks’ Ronnie Dunn duet “Rodeo Man,” his reimagined version of David Allan Coe’s “The Ride,” his Kelly Clarkson collaboration “The Ship and the Bottle,” and more.
“Right now, country music’s all over the place,” Brooks said of the album. “You’ll hear this rush of ’90s sounding country, and then you’ll hear a more modern song you can tell has been influenced by current pop music.”
Brooks named the album Time Traveler because the collection covers a diverse amount of sounds in country music’s history.
[Listen Here to Time Traveler]
“My favorite genre of country music has to be the ’60s and ’70s,” he said. “Then, if there’s a second, it’s the ’80s because of (George) Strait, (Randy) Travis, (Ricky) Skaggs, and (Keith) Whitley. This was a fun thing to get to do and visit all the different eras of country music.”
He’d like for people to start listening at the top of the album with “Me Without You” and follow the journey.
“It’s got a beautiful, kind of hooky front-end on it,” he said.
“I just think that’s why the title kind of tied it all together,” he continued.
Coe released “The Ride” in 1983 – one of Brooks’ favorite tracks on Time Traveler.
Garth Brooks Wrote the Second Verse of “The Ride”
One of the song’s writers, Gary Gentry, told NSAI’s Bart Herbison that “The Ride,” a song about an aspiring musician hitchhiking to Nashville and receiving a ride from Hank Williams’ ghost, is somewhat reality-based. Gentry said he wrote the song at 4 a.m. and saw the ghost of Williams sitting shirtless on his couch.
Brooks was thrilled when they let him write the middle verse for his album.
“For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to know what happened between when he picked him up and dropped him off,” Garth said. “But it’s not in the song. So, I got to write the middle verse, and it’s so good. My favorite line is, ‘Every story smelled like whiskey, and every word is gospel truth.’ To me, that defines Hank Williams’ music.”
“Ship and the Bottle” Was “So Right” for Kelly Clarkson
He explained it was Yearwood’s idea to invite Kelly Clarkson to sing on “Ship and the Bottle.”
“It was so right for her,” Brooks said of Clarkson, who he remembers drove herself to the Los Angeles studio instead of having a driver. “I was outside when she pulled up in her truck. She wasn’t in there 30 minutes, and she was done. It was pretty neat to watch professional work like that.”
His Ronnie Dunn duet “Rodeo Man” came together in a different way. Brooks recorded the song in Dunn’s key at his beats per minute. Then, they married the two vocal performances in the studio.
“There’s a band in there that’s never been put together, never seen each other,” Brooks said. “They were all put together in post-production.”
Garth Brooks Felt Fabulous When James Taylor Agreed To Produce His Song
While Brooks is the first to admit he loved the ’90s in country music and is flattered that people want to revisit the era’s sound – he explains that “Rodeo Man” isn’t meant to be that. He and Dunn have already been there.
“I don’t think it sounds like the ’90s myself,” Brooks said. “I just think it sounds like something from Ronnie Dunn and Garth Brooks.”
He turned to another musical icon for support on “St Paul/Minneapolis (A True Story)” – James Taylor. He wrote the song alone based on a pleasant conversation he had with a mystery woman in the city. Brooks asked Taylor to produce the song, and Taylor agreed before he heard it. After listening, Taylor told Brooks he thought the song was perfect the way it was.
“He just said, ‘Hey man, just believe,’” Garth said, explaining he sped the song up slightly to give it more of a groove. “It feels so, so good.”
Brooks’ greatest gift was Taylor telling him he’d be happy to produce whatever he had.
“That felt fabulous,” Brooks said. “The guy has always been a friend to me before I ever met him, but he’s really been a friend to me since I’ve met him. I really enjoy that relationship and the fact that he didn’t hesitate and just said, ‘Yeah, I’ll produce,’ whether it ever happened or not didn’t matter for me after that. It’s just like, ‘Wow, that was my favorite thing.”
(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
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