Artistic integrity

By Don Davis, The Forum
Published Sunday, August 07, 2005

DETROIT LAKES, Minn. – Sawyer Brown and The Wrights approach country music differently.

Each time in the nearly 25 years the five Sawyer Brown members have taken the stage, they produced a wild party of a country rock concert.

The husband-and-wife team of Adam and Shannon Wright, just hitting the national scene, approach country music in a slower, more traditional style.

They are different in experience and music styles, but both say staying true to their artistic philosophy is important. They say country music performers can do that and still make money.

Sawyer Brown won the Star Search television show more than 20 years ago with what their road manager calls bubble gum music. Not much has changed over the years, Doug Henry said.

“It was what they felt they were meant to do,” Henry added. And it will continue “as long as it is something they can relate to and what the fans can relate to.”

The Wrights produce a much different sound.

“It is a little more laid back than some things out there,” Shannon Wright said.

And it is going to stay that way, the couple promised.

Staying true to their musical belief is more important than making a lot of money, Adam Wright said, adding: “That’s why we are not rich and famous.”

The Wrights sang to a scattered audience at the WE Fest country music festival near Detroit Lakes, while Sawyer Brown packed more than 40,000 as the audience stood for the whole concert, singing along most of the way.

Most music performers will say they don’t change their artistic beliefs to make a buck, but a man who closely follows country music knows differently.

“I’m sure there has been some soul selling,” Keith Bilbrey said in a telephone interview. “You have to conform to what the public demands until you make yourself enough of a name.”

Bilbrey has watched the country music industry close up for more than 30 years from WSM, a Nashville radio station that sponsors the Grand Ole Opry.

“This is by in large a business,” Bilbrey said. “I think anybody that forgets it probably won’t be on top very long.”

An example of making a wrong decision by slipping away from her roots is Faith Hill, Bilbrey said. “She got a little too far into the pop (music) field. ... She pulled in the reins and said, ‘I’m going back to what I began with.’”

Hill, whose husband Tim McGraw concluded the 23rd annual WE Fest Saturday night, released a CD last week with more traditional country songs than some less-successful previous attempts.

Like other forms of art, county music “is rife with wrong decisions,” Bilbrey said. Some performers recover, some don’t.

Perhaps the best example of a wrong business decision was Garth Brooks trying to take on an alternative identity to sing rock. It flopped, but Brooks recovered and remains one of the most popular country singers of all time.

Henry said Sawyer Brown members won’t sell their souls. For instance, their fans won’t hear cheating spouse songs because three of the members are devoted Christians.

Some wonder if a group that followed Sawyer Brown’s model, Big and Rich, will need to make some adjustments.

Bilbrey knows John Rich of the duo.

“This train he has gotten on here, it is yet to be seen if it is novelty act about to go away,” Bilbrey said. “But I don’t think so.”

“I think those guys have gotten a little bit on the outrageous side to get attention.”

The Wrights have no intention of getting outrageous.

When the two Georgians met in Atlanta, they hit it off musically as well as romantically. But their music style was not appreciated by everyone.

A half-dozen bars fired them because they did not want to play other artists’ hits, a fate that also happened to Sawyer Brown. Playing those songs does not allow an artist to grow, Shannon Wright said.

When the Wrights started doing their own style music, “I was worried about it, but Adam was 100 percent confident,” Shannon Wright said.

“The trick is the find where art and commerce intersect,” Adam Wright said.

A key to being successful, he added, is having someone willing to tell the performer “you are stinking.”

Bilbrey said most performers are more artists than businessmen.

“I have seen some really great artists come along and for whatever reason they just could not get together with management – it is a disaster,” he said. “Very painful to watch because you know this artist has what it takes.”

Shannon Wright said the group’s record company may be tempted to seek changes.

“There probably is a little more pressure from them to do what is out there now (by others),” she said. However, she added, RCA executives have not pressured The Wrights. “They want us to do something that we are proud of.”

Besides, Adam Wright said, people can tell if a performer is not genuine.

Once performers hit the big time, they have fewer worries about being accepted.

“With their longevity, they can play pretty much their own songs,” Henry said of Sawyer Brown.

Added Bilbrey: “If people like what Alan Jackson does, all he has to do is keep being Alan Jackson.”

Readers can reach Forum reporter Don Davis at (651) 290-0707