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The Case For Trace
04/30/1998 12:47 PM, Yahoo! Music
Michael McCall
Several years ago, new country star Trace Adkins switched from singing gospel music in a male quartet to performing country hits in rowdy Texas bars. The transition came easier for him than it might have for some of his praise-singing peers.
"I have to admit that I was one of those back-sliding Baptists," Adkins says. "I spent Saturday night in the beer joints and Sunday morning in church. That's probably a terrible thing to admit to, but it's true."
As it turns out, that kind of real-life experience is what separates Adkins from many of the other young country singers of the '90s. While fresh-faced peers like Clay Walker and Rhett Akins are as clean as choir boys, Adkins shows the scars that come from enduring several rough patches in life.
"If people know my story, they can listen to the songs and know that ol' Trace, he lived those songs," Adkins says. "If I'm singing a song about hard times, the people who know me know that I've been there and done that. You don't necessarily have to go through hard knocks in order to sing a hard-knocks song. But when I sing about heartache, I'm not talking about giving back a senior ring."
Indeed, he's not. A veteran of the rough Southwestern honky-tonk circuit, the 6'6", 245-pound Adkins has been shot, stabbed, and beaten severely. Most of the violence took place in barrooms and parking lots, but in 1994 his second wife shot him through his lungs and heart during a domestic dispute. No charges were pressed. Adkins says he never abused her, but that their relationship was awash in booze and boisterous bickering.
Adkins recently married for the third time. His new wife, former record company publicist Rhonda Forlaw, introduced him to producer Scott Hendricks, who signed Adkins to Capitol Records after catching a performance at a small, blue-collar Nashville bar. Forlaw stood by Adkins as he climbed from nightclub singer to up-and-coming country star to winner of a 1997 Academy Of Country Music Award for Best New Male Artist.
At a time when new male country singers are having a hard time establishing a significant fanbase, Adkins stands as tall on the record charts as he does in his cowboy boots. He has joined Bryan White as the only two male singers to score their first million-selling country album in the last two years.
"I realize some people's perception is that I'm one of the only ones to have made it here lately," Adkins says. "And I guess we've done pretty well with the last few singles. But to me it still feels like a battle. There aren't no guarantees. We're still out here rolling the dice, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not at a place where I can rest. I got to be out there pushing it every day."
Thanks to the video for "(This Ain't) No Thinkin' Thing," Adkins also has become an unlikely sex symbol of sorts. The hit video showed the tall, stout Adkins grinding his hips like Tom Jones and dipping down in time to the tune's rhythmic groove.
"The dancing basically started when I was playing the clubs," he explains. "During breaks, I'd grab a good-looking woman and get on the dance floor, if I could get one to dance with me."
Adkins started moving more onstage as well, and a good response from the crowd encouraged him. "I'd do it when the mood came over me," he says. "People ask me if my shows are choreographed, and I have to laugh. I don't do anything I don't feel like doing."
However, because of the popularity of "No Thinkin' Thing," crowds now expect him to dance. "It's become a compulsory event now," he says. "If I'm doing the show, and the ladies up front don't think I'm putting out like I ought to be, they'll scream for me to dance like I do in the video. It's a little weird, but I enjoy the response it gets."
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