The Garth Factor by Patsi Bale Cox

Author:Patsi Bale Cox [COX, PATSI BALE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781599952758
Publisher: Center Street
Published: 2009-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

THE SOLD-OUT CONCERTS drew the largest audience for any event in Dublin since the pope’s visit in 1979. By the time Garth’s eight Dublin shows wrapped, he had been seen live by one in every fifty people in Ireland. One in four Irish families owned a Brooks CD or cassette. Dublin senator Paschal Mooney attended one of the concerts and said, “Every Irish home used to have three pictures: Jesus, the Pope, and JFK—and now there’s a fourth, Garth Brooks.”

It was an unprecedented welcome for an American artist.

Garth spent a great amount of his offstage time in 1994 with the Irish people. He used both the city buses and the DART (similar to an above-ground subway system) to sightsee, rode horses, and played golf. He came to love the Irish for their “unpretentiousness” and the connection he felt between their own music and the country music he loved. And he was so pumped up about their enthusiasm for music that he promised to return, and bring cameras.

“The thing about the Irish people is that there is no resistance. There’s no clenched fist. It’s all open,” Garth later explained. “They sing. They just pop their heads back and sing. And they sing so well!”

Sandy Brooks also had a special connection with the Irish performance. Because she was at home, just weeks away from giving birth, Garth phoned her from the stage, and the audience serenaded her. Garth loved his experience at the Point in Dublin so much that he named a spot at his Tennessee farm after the venue.

He later told the Irish Times’ Kathy Sheridan that he did so because his experience in Dublin had changed his life: “Something happened at the Point that really just—just changed where I was going in my life. Changed my views on myself and on the music. It meant that much. You know, if you’re playin’ only in your own backyard, you start to think, ‘Hey, things are happening here and it’s cool’—but only in your own backyard. And you think, ‘But it wouldn’t go over in that person’s backyard.’ So you go over there and something like this happens that gives you a faith, gives you a courage to actually not be afraid of the world, to not be afraid of the differences we have.”

The World Tour was vital to the industry in that many country stars wait until their careers have cooled somewhat to play extensively outside the United States. Garth’s commitment, beginning during peak years of his career, encouraged promoters worldwide to book more country acts than normal, benefiting everyone. Two years later, in May 1995, the Academy of Country Music presented Garth with the Jim Reeves Memorial Award at its 30th Annual ACM Awards show in Los Angeles. Named for the man who thirty-five years earlier had pioneered international country markets, the award is only given when the ACM recognizes an artist who has uniquely promoted and enhanced the image of country music internationally.

When Garth returned, he said he believed

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