Pearls : Tim McGraw
"A lot of artists can tell you how they feel," says Tim McGraw, "but when somebody can tell you how you feel, and you didn't know it or couldn't put it into words, that's the goal. What you want to do as an artist is let someone discover how they feel from your music, in a really visceral way, from the inside out."
For twenty years, McGraw has been providing that kind of powerful connection with his audience. With Two Lanes of Freedom, his new album—and first release for Big Machine Records—the singer is covering his broadest emotional range yet, with a set of songs that looks forward and back, gets deep and gets loose, and reveals that even the biggest stars can continue to grow with consistency and maturity.
In his record-shattering career, McGraw has sold over 40 million albums, and dominated the charts with 32 Number One singles. Since the release of his debut album in 1993, he has won three Grammys, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 12 Country Music Association Awards, and 10 American Music Awards, while simultaneously maintaining a parallel career as a successful actor in such films as The Blind Side, Country Strong, and Friday Night Lights—as well as hosting Saturday Night Live, a rare honor for a singer in any genre. McGraw has never been afraid of breaking new ground; over the years, he has collaborated with musicians from Nelly to Tony Bennett to Def Leppard and Ne-Yo.
"I feel like I've progressed in my work, and I've gotten better," says McGraw. "On my last album, Emotional Traffic, I was discovering some new sounds and new things that I wanted to do, scratching the surface of the direction I wanted to head. This album was a way to reach a little further back, to all that I'd done throughout my career, and bring both sides together—it's a combination of that discovery, along with some rediscovery."
Over the last few years, McGraw has seen a transformation in numerous aspects of his career: changes in his management, his record company, and his band. "All of those things make you reflect on where you've been," he says, "and it's hard to think about where you want to go until you look at where you've been. When you listen to this record, there's a lot of that reflection that drives everything forward. It's almost like two magnets, the future and the past, and when they get close to each other, it pushes them away.
"I've always gone in the studio and tried to make the best record I could possibly make," he continues, "but to come into a situation where there's some weight lifted, some refreshment going on, you can feel that in the music. I think you can feel the horses gallop on this record, and where I might go and what I might do when my engines are revving."
"A lot of artists can tell you how they feel," says Tim McGraw, "but when somebody can tell you how you feel, and you didn't know it or couldn't put it into words, that's the goal. What you want to do as an artist is let someone discover how they feel from your music, in a really visceral way, from the inside out."
For twenty years, McGraw has been providing that kind of powerful connection with his audience. With Two Lanes of Freedom, his new album—and first release for Big Machine Records—the singer is covering his broadest emotional range yet, with a set of songs that looks forward and back, gets deep and gets loose, and reveals that even the biggest stars can continue to grow with consistency and maturity.
In his record-shattering career, McGraw has sold over 40 million albums, and dominated the charts with 32 Number One singles. Since the release of his debut album in 1993, he has won three Grammys, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 12 Country Music Association Awards, and 10 American Music Awards, while simultaneously maintaining a parallel career as a successful actor in such films as The Blind Side, Country Strong, and Friday Night Lights—as well as hosting Saturday Night Live, a rare honor for a singer in any genre. McGraw has never been afraid of breaking new ground; over the years, he has collaborated with musicians from Nelly to Tony Bennett to Def Leppard and Ne-Yo.
"I feel like I've progressed in my work, and I've gotten better," says McGraw. "On my last album, Emotional Traffic, I was discovering some new sounds and new things that I wanted to do, scratching the surface of the direction I wanted to head. This album was a way to reach a little further back, to all that I'd done throughout my career, and bring both sides together—it's a combination of that discovery, along with some rediscovery."
Over the last few years, McGraw has seen a transformation in numerous aspects of his career: changes in his management, his record company, and his band. "All of those things make you reflect on where you've been," he says, "and it's hard to think about where you want to go until you look at where you've been. When you listen to this record, there's a lot of that reflection that drives everything forward. It's almost like two magnets, the future and the past, and when they get close to each other, it pushes them away.
"I've always gone in the studio and tried to make the best record I could possibly make," he continues, "but to come into a situation where there's some weight lifted, some refreshment going on, you can feel that in the music. I think you can feel the horses gallop on this record, and where I might go and what I might do when my engines are revving."
Two Lanes of Freedom closes with "The Highway Don't Care," a breezy yet complex track that features two of country music's biggest superstars, Taylor Swift and Keith Urban. "When I heard the song, I knew I wanted Taylor to sing on it," says McGraw. "And I've been looking for years for something to have Keith play on, because I think he's one of the best artists we have out there. He's a fantastic guitar player and he went to town on this thing—I would do this for a hundred bucks a night and never sing another lick if I could play guitar like that."
The album begins and ends with images of the road, a scenario that Tim McGraw knows well and he’s sure to embark on another sell-out tour supporting the new album in 2013.
On stage and on record, Tim McGraw remains dedicated to delivering music that is innovative, heartfelt, and authentic. “These songs are written and constructed in a way that people can impose their own memories and put themselves in your place, like going to a great movie and making yourself the hero,” he says. “Art has to be cathartic; that's why people enjoy it. It makes you think or reflect, it purges you emotionally. That's what propels you as an artist, and it’s what makes a listener stay engaged.”
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Sources : Tim McGraw Photo | Tim McGraw Biography
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