Brooks & Dunn
“We came from pretty blue-collar backgrounds, so you had to dream some lofty dreams,”
says Ronnie Dunn about the emotional momentum that drives Cowboy Town, the powerful new
album by country music superstars, Brooks & Dunn. With the disc’s first single, “Proud of the
House We Built,” yet another smash in a career of more than twenty #1 singles, Dunn observed,
“It was literally a fairy tale to think we could get to where things are now. I could tell you a
thousand times when I hit the wall, but through persistence, we got there. I think for most
people, it’s not about being the most talented. It’s about weathering the storm.”
That determination to weather the storm – and to have a damn good time while doing it – has
been essential to the music of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn since they released their debut
album, Brand New Man, in 1991. Now, thirty million album sales, a couple of Grammys and a
raft of ACM and CMA Awards later, little has changed for them where it counts – on the inside.
“We’re not motivated by awards,” Brooks says. “Awards are a by-product of hard work, not
what makes you do it. Both of us are motivated by the same desperation that motivated us when
we first met. We believe in writing as many songs as we can, recording the best music we can,
and working to make it all as good as we can make it.”
It’s that ethic, the values of a place “where a good man’s word is money in the bank,” that
defines the world of Cowboy Town. Despite what its title may suggest, the album is not about
rodeo cowboys or the inhabitants of a mythical West, however worthy those folks might be. As
far as this album is concerned, a cowboy – or a cowgirl, for that matter, as the affecting
“Cowgirls Don’t Cry” makes clear – is anyone who gets up and stands tall after taking a hit.
Anyone, in other words, who weathers the storm.
It’s an attitude, Dunn says, that takes shape where “the Rolling Stones meet the cowboys out
there across America and everywhere else.” And the rocking title track sounds that way, too – a
muscular, uplifting blend of country and rock & roll. “We tried to go anthem with it,” Dunn
explains with a sheepish chuckle.
Brooks agrees. “Musically, it’s banging straight ahead, and lyrically, it’s got all those iconic
images in it,” he states approvingly. “It encompasses everything that’s going on with the
album.”
If that sounds like the very definition of what a title track should be, that’s because “Cowboy
Town” was among the last of more than thirty songs that Brooks & Dunn recorded and
considered for the album. They wanted a statement that pulled the album together, and they got
it. The song, which opens the disc, finds a thematic soul mate toward the end in “American
Dreamer,” a song that bestows its title on achievers as diverse as Merle Haggard, the Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr., and astronaut Neil Armstrong. It’s an American Dream that’s that big. Big
enough for everyone.
“Johnny Cash Junkie (Buck Owens Freak)” and “The Ballad of Jerry Jeff Walker,”
meanwhile, pay tribute to the musical masters who inspired – and continue to inspire – Brooks &
Dunn. That Walker put in a guest appearance on the song that bears his name gave Brooks a
thrill that will last a lifetime. “He showed up with a Martin guitar and a six-pack,” Brooks says
of the session in Austin at which his idol contributed his characteristically spirited vocal. “He
walked in and said, ‘I’m ready!’ He gave it his all, and was totally in the spirit of the song.”
As far as paying tribute goes, “Put a Girl in It” and “Tequila” acknowledge two other
inspirations that have motivated musicians – and pretty much everybody else – since time
immemorial. “I’m sitting on my back porch looking at my barn, which is a quarter mile from
here, and I cannot tell you how many times I have crawled from my barn to this house,” Dunn
says as he describes “Tequila,” which he co-wrote with his longtime collaborator, Terry
McBride. “We were laughing on the bus trying to write this thing – believe me, it was written
from experience. Then in the studio, I thought it might work as one of those Stevie Ray
Vaughan kind of shuffles, and the back just locked in.”
Laughter comes up a lot, in fact, as Brooks & Dunn talk about Cowboy Town. Brooks
describes the wry break-up song, “Chance of a Lifetime,” which he wrote with Bob DiPiero, “as
one of a long line of songs where me and DiPiero laughed as much as we wrote. I love that
aspect of country music, from Roger Miller on down, of songs that have a good sense of humor.
It’s one of country music’s friendlier aspects – it’s not as sarcastic as rock & roll often is. That
song’s about a guy admitting ‘I was an idiot,’ and girls love hearing that – and, honestly, guys
do, too, because, well, we are what we are!”
But fun is far from the entire story of Cowboy Town. The ballad “God Must Be Busy” ends
the album on a reflective note. It’s a song that searches for spiritual meaning amid the many
problems – war, unemployment, violence – that constitute the storm that we all must struggle to
weather. The song’s empathy with everyone who suffers, and its refusal to grasp at easy
answers, suggests a necessary vulnerability that complements the toughness of cowboy stoicism.
It’s the soft heart that beats underneath the thickened skin.
As always, Cowboy Town evokes the wide world as Brooks & Dunn see it. It’s a place where
the hard times don’t discount the good times – in fact, the hard times make the good times that
much more enjoyable. “I love playing, singing and writing,” Brooks says simply. “The fact that
I walk away from shows and people tell me what a great time they had, that gives me a lot of joy.
We’re doing what we want to do and people are enjoying it, so I like to think that everybody’s
winning.”
