Uh...so, okay – this guy, Chris Gaines, evidently confused a lot of people back in September 1999 when Capitol Records announced they were releasing the greatest hits album of this supposed Grammy Award winning artist. I seem to recall thinking it might have been fun to go trick-or-treating as Gaines that year – must have been a fleeting thought because I'm fairly sure I didn’t. Just as strange, I didn't recall him winning a Grammy in 1989. The only thing fake that came out of 1989 the best I can recall was Milli Vanilli and we all know what happened there. Would anyone protest if someone "discovered" a popular pop-country artist was performing Gaines' voice? Even though Gaines' bio says he's been doing "something" since 1967, back in '99 he was a relative newcomer to the world of music and possibly the world of reality.
All right: long story short (an epically narcissistic story short), Gaines is the alternative rock persona of country artist Garth Brooks, which may have been immediately apparent at the time, I don't recall. I remember wondering why we needed made-up "local boy makes good" stories when there were plenty of sorrow-drenched lives out there already making real music for their just-as-real fans. Maybe all of this would have made more sense had the associated movie gotten the green light (yippy…). This Gaines CD was to double as the soundtrack to The Lamb: the life and times of Chris Gaines but because of time, money, or interest (or a combination of all three) the film never made it to the big screen. Digging around the Backsells archives I found this quote of The Artist Formerly Known As Garth identifying with the Gaines character:
"To me, the character ... hasn't been a 6"1', 225-pound guy. If I do play it, I'm gonna need to lose an ass and a half.''
I guess if you are at a slum in your career you go off to dark corner and make something, or someone, up.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Right Now
(Chester Powers/Cheryl Wheeler )
Chris Gaines
From the album In the Life of Chris Gaines
1999
Maybe it’s the movies, maybe it’s the books
Maybe it’s the government and all the other crooks
Maybe it’s the drugs, maybe it’s the parents
Maybe it’s the gangs, or the colors that we’re wearin'
Maybe it’s the high schools, maybe it’s the teachers
Tattoos, pipe bombs underneath the bleachers
Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s the crack
Maybe it’s the bible, or could it be the lack
Come on people, now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another, right now...right now
Okay, maybe it’s the papers, maybe it’s the family
Maybe it’s the internet, radio, TV
Maybe it’s the president, maybe it’s the last one
Maybe it’s the one before that
Maybe it’s the athletes, maybe it’s the dads
Maybe it’s the sports fans, agents, fads
Maybe it’s the homeless, aliens, immigrants
Maybe it’s life, don’t tell me that it’s imminent
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
You gotta love one another
Maybe it’s the fallout, maybe it’s the ozone
Maybe it’s the chemicals, the radiation, cell phones
Maybe it’s the magazines, maybe it the next page
Lotteries, fast food, bad news, road rage
Maybe it the unions, big business
Maybe it’s the KKK and the skinheads
Maybe it’s the daughters, maybe it’s the sons
Maybe it’s the brothers of the mothers or the guns
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
(You know, if we don’t talk about it
It ain’t gonna get better)
We gotta love one another
(So, whadda say, let’s talk)
Maybe it’s the parks, maybe it’s the sex
Maybe it’s the talk shows, maybe it’s a reflex
Maybe it’s the taxes, maybe it’s the system
Judges, lawyers, prisons
Maybe it’s the Catholics, maybe it’s the Protestants
Maybe it’s the addicts, and the hippies and communists
Maybe it’s a fashion, maybe it’s a trend
Maybe it’s the future... maybe it’s the end
