Friday Night Entertainment  

Blake Shelton

With the success of his 2008 chart-topper "Home," Blake Shelton took a long career step forward. With the release of Startin' Fires, he leaps to a whole new level. "Home" took Shelton into new musical territory, stretching him vocally and stylistically, helping him expand his audience to include those who might have missed the more traditional approach he'd taken to that point. Startin' Fires, his fifth album, completes that journey, establishing him in the process as one of country music's most talented and versatile song stylists.

"This is something I've been wanting to do," he says, "exploring richer melodies and challenging myself as a singer."

Long-time fans will find that Shelton honors his roots as well. Long known for the way he wraps his rich baritone around both emotion-laden ballads like "Austin" and "The Baby" and light-hearted party anthems like "Some Beach" and "The More I Drink," he tackles songs about country life and attitudes with more joyful assurance than ever, bringing his personality to bear on the record as never before.

"That's what I do," he says of the song's rural images. "I sit with my guitar, plant corn and watch the deer and hawks. When I left the house this morning, there was camouflage hanging on the clothesline--as redneck as it gets. And it's funny, the lifestyle I've lived for years and years has become the new green movement."

The album has plenty of all the elements that make Shelton the multidimensional artist he is today--soaring melodies, passionate lyrics, a bit of romance, and songs that celebrate the country life.

Last year's star turn on the NBC miniseries Clash of the Choirs and Blake's appearance as a judge on Nashville Star have helped raise his profile across the board, introducing his irreverently skewed personality to millions of new fans.

It's a long way from Ada, Oklahoma, where he dreamed early on of a career in music. In fact, he once got a bit of inspiration from the man who produced Startin' Fires."

"I remember seeing a story on an Oklahoma City TV station about Scott Hendricks,” he says. “They said he was an Oklahoma guy who had moved to Nashville and made good, making these huge albums on big artists. I used to think, 'It would be so cool to meet him some day. Maybe he'd give me a shot.' Then, not long ago, he fell in my lap when he became A&R chief at Warner Bros. We decided we wanted to make this record together, and I'm really glad we did."

Blake cut his teeth on the Oklahoma City club circuit while still in high school. He was part of the entertainment for an event in Ada honoring Mae Axton, writer of the Elvis classic "Heartbreak Hotel." She saw him perform and told Blake she thought he could get a record deal if he moved to Nashville and that she was willing to help. That convinced him to move just two weeks after graduation. He worked with Hoyt Axton, Bobby Braddock and Earl Thomas Conley, among others, en route to his record deal, and his debut single, "Austin," shot him straight to the top of the charts. It also became his first #1 video, a group that would ultimately include "Heavy Liftin'," "Goodbye Time," “Home,” "Nobody But Me," “Some Beach,” “Don’t Make Me,” “The More I Drink” and the song that still gets as passionate a reaction as any.

"'Ol' Red' was not a huge hit at radio," he says, "but it's my signature song. To this day, that's the one people hold up signs for in concert."

Thanks to those songs, Blake's stature as a singer has grown steadily through the years, and his presence everywhere from network television to Youtube has raised his profile even more. Now, with the release of Startin’ Fires, Blake steps into the forefront as both one of the country’s premiere vocalists and one of its true personalities. It’s a position he declares himself grateful to be in.

“I think,” he says with his trademark smile, “that I’ve got the best of both worlds.”

Source:  www.blakeshelton.com

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