walking upstream…
Garth Brooks
photo: greg2600 · cc by-sa 2.0 ↗Garth Brooks
sourcesWikipedia · American Songwriter · The Boot
Troyal Garth Brooks grew up in Yukon, Oklahoma, the youngest of six kids in a house where his mother, Colleen Carroll, had once cut country records of her own and the family record collection ranged from George Jones to Kansas. He arrived in Nashville in 1987 already torn between a rock heart and a country calling, and his self-titled 1989 debut and its 1990 follow-up 'No Fences' fused the two: honky-tonk songcraft delivered with a wireless headset mic and an arena-rock show built for stadiums rather than showcase bars. 'Friends in Low Places' and 'The Dance' made him the decade's defining country star and, eventually, the best-selling solo artist in U.S. history, with nine Diamond-certified albums.
walk the tributaries ↓
George Strait1980s · Country / Neotraditional country / Honky-tonk
Brooks has said he was working the door at a Stillwater, Oklahoma club in 1981 when he first heard Strait's debut single and it reset his idea of what country music could be; years later he called Strait and George Jones 'two guys that are just kings to me... they're what it's all about.' The imprint is in Brooks's plainspoken, honky-tonk-rooted verses and unfussy vocal phrasing — the neotraditional backbone underneath all his arena-scaled production.
listen: upstream & here
1981
UnwoundGeorge Strait
listen forPlay Strait's 'Unwound' next to Brooks's 'Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),' his own 1989 debut single — both ride a lean, shuffling honky-tonk two-step built around a plainspoken vocal that never oversells the ache in the lyric.
James Taylor1970s · Folk rock / Soft rock / Singer-songwriter
Brooks has named Taylor among the handful of songwriters — alongside Dan Fogelberg, Elton John, and Billy Joel — he calls 'unbelievable writers to me,' and has been candid that he wrote 'The River' 'practically trying to rip off every lick that James Taylor had.' It surfaces as gentle fingerstyle-derived guitar figures and a confessional, follow-your-heart lyric stance underneath Brooks's bigger country arrangements.
listen: upstream & here
1970
Fire and RainJames Taylor
listen forSet Taylor's 'Fire and Rain' beside Brooks's 'The River' — both open on a quiet, circling acoustic guitar pattern and a plainly confessional lyric about weathering hard seasons, building to a repeated, mantra-like refrain rather than a big hook.
KISS1970s · Hard rock / Glam rock / Heavy metal
Brooks grew up a KISS fan and carried it into his own career: in 1994 he covered 'Hard Luck Woman' for the tribute album 'Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved' with KISS itself backing him, then performed it live with the band on 'The Tonight Show.' The influence shows up not in Brooks's chord changes but in his stagecraft — a wireless headset mic freeing him to run and climb across the set, pyrotechnics, and a physical, full-arena show that had no precedent in country concerts before him.
listen: upstream & heresource: Wikipedia ↗
1975
Rock and Roll All NiteKISS
listen forThere's no single lick to trace here; instead, put KISS's 'Rock and Roll All Nite' — an anthem built entirely to detonate a stadium crowd — next to a live cut of Brooks's 'Ain't Goin' Down ('Til the Sun Comes Up),' where he flies over the audience on a harness. Both are less about the recording than the same promise: the show itself as spectacle.