 Biography
Blake Shelton may have chosen the
amusing title “Pure BS” for his fourth album, but it’s the
“pure” part of the name that most aptly describes the music.
Traditional-minded but produced with a contemporary edge, “Pure
BS” perfectly showcases Shelton as a powerful and expressive
vocalist while also showing off his impressive songwriting
skills on three of the tracks.
To get that “pure” sound, Shelton pushed himself harder than
ever before as a singer and as a writer and stepped out of his
comfort zone in the studio to work with some first rate
producers who pushed him even more. The end result, Shelton
believes, is his best album to date, and one that has already
spawned the hit single “Don’t Make Me.”
In addition to his longtime collaborator, Bobby Braddock,
Shelton worked with producers Brent Rowan and Paul Worley on his
new CD, an experience that proved to be fruitful. In the end,
Braddock and Rowan each produced four of the album’s tracks, and
Worley helmed three. But the finished CD reveals that all three
producers shared the same vision.
That vision sprang from his last album, “Blake Shelton’s Barn &
Grill,” which featured Shelton’s hit remake of Conway Twitty’s
“Goodbye Time.” When that song became a single, the artist says
people frequently told him “I didn’t know you could sing like
that.” Those comments inspired him to “showcase what I can do
vocally a little more” on “Pure BS.”
While he says the “hard times, broken heart, drinking songs” are
still where he’s vocally the most comfortable, Shelton and his
producers also looked for songs that, he says, “pushed me to
sing better and to see how far my range could go.”
Shelton had worked exclusively with Braddock on his first three
CDs. “Bobby and I were very successful together,” he says.
“We’ve sold two and a half million albums with our work
together. I’m very proud of that. At the same time, I felt like
for the fourth album I didn’t want to completely abandon the
sound that Bobby and I had together, but I wanted to explore new
stuff. I didn’t want to keep making the same album over and over
again.”
Shelton’s new producers pushed him to “try new things and see
what’s still inside me that I haven’t tapped into yet.” And sure
enough, he says, “I did find more of myself that I didn’t know
was there. I had to dig down deeper and be uncomfortable again
with somebody that I didn’t know that well in the studio and
feel like I had something to prove to that person.”
With Rowan and Worley, he says, “I didn’t really know what would
happen when he and I went in the studio together, but man, I
couldn’t be more thrilled with the stuff we made together.”
That’s not to say it was easy. Worley in particular was a tough
task master. “In the studio with Paul, I would sing something
that I thought sounded great and he’d hit that talkback button
and say ‘Man I know you’ve got better than that in there.’ It
was frustrating, but you step up and you sing harder and you
reach for a note that maybe you wouldn’t have even tried,”
Shelton says. “It turned out to be the right call.”
For Shelton, 2006 was a time of personal and professional
changes. He and his wife amicably divorced and Shelton moved
back to his home state of Oklahoma, declaring Nashville a place
where he “could never get totally comfortable. It’s just way too
big for me.” On the professional side, Shelton joined forces
with veteran manager Narvel and Brandon Blackstock, who also
handle the career of Reba McEntire.
His newfound sense of freedom even inspired a new look as
Shelton shed his trademark long curls for a shorter hairstyle
that more closely matches his growing maturity and stature as an
artist.
After a difficult year, Shelton can relate to every song on
“Pure BS,” saying they’re all “pretty much were I am as a person
right now. It’s not that bad of a place. I’ve been through some
tough times but . . . I feel good right now. I want to sing
about a lot of those things I’ve gone through and a lot of those
emotions. That’s what’s going to help me come through a better
person on the other side.”
As an artist, Shelton has shown steady growth and momentum since
his impressive 2001 debut, which earned him the title of Radio &
Records magazine’s breakthrough country artist that year. His
hits run the gamut from the sweet sentiments of “Austin,” and
“The Baby” through Shelton’s powerful take on “Goodbye Time” and
on to the hilarious “Some Beach” and the wildly original prison
break story song, “Ol’ Red.”
The collection of songs on “Pure BS” is equally diverse, ranging
from “She Can’t Get That” -- a cheating song with a twist -- to
the funny “The More I Drink,” in which alcohol turns the song’s
character into “the world’s greatest lover and a dancing
machine.” Among the album’s other standout tracks are a remake
of the edgy Chris Knight/Craig Wiseman song “It Ain’t Easy Being
Me,” and the sing-along anthem “The Last Country Song,” which
features guest vocals from two of Shelton’s all-time heroes,
John Anderson and George Jones.
Shelton and Braddock wrote “The Last Country Song” with Michael
Kosser. The lyrics, while largely about farmland giving way to
development, also reference Anderson’s classic song “Swingin’”
and Jones’ signature song “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”
“What I love about that song is the statement it makes not only
about America, but about country music, about how what a lot of
us have gotten comfortable with and used to and love about
country music is going away,” Shelton says of the track. “It’s
changing, and whether it’s for better or for worse there’s no
stopping it.”
Despite all his professional achievements, Shelton has a unique
vision for what will ultimately define his success as an artist.
“I will never stop looking for that next level of my career and
how to get there, but not for the reasons that a lot of people
want to get there,” he says. “I’m not chasing a dollar and I’m
not trying to be the king of the mountain. I want to be that guy
who, when some old guy is driving down a back road somewhere 20
years from now, he still has one of my old CDs that he’s been
listening to all that time.
“I want to make those albums that [last] forever that people
never throw away. When they break it they go buy another one
because I sing songs that they really relate to and my music
means something to them. That’s what I’m chasing.”
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