As seen on TV: Natural State native heads back home for Fort Smith show
Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008
When Buddy Jewell talks about returning to his home state, the words sound as if they could be made into another collection of verses from his well-known hit "Sweet Southern Comfort."
"If I'm crossing the Mississippi. That's when I hit home -- that bridge in Memphis. ... Seeing the bridge and looking over that water. That was always a welcome sight,"said Jewell, who was born in Lepanto and grew up in Osceola in the northeastern region of Arkansas. "If my kids are asleep, I say 'Hey, wake up. We're crossing the Mississippi.
"It used to be how bumpy I-40 was, but now they've fixed that."
Chances are Jewell, whose latest album "Country Enough"was released in July, will be traveling down that stretch of interstate on his way to the four-performer showcase in Fort Smith known as the Honky Tonk Tailgate Party. Along with national country recording artists Mark Wills, Trent Willmon and Ray Scott, Jewell will take to the stage Sept. 6 at Harper Stadium in Kay Rogers Park.
"Especially with the economy the way it is, getting four artists in one show is a heck of a deal,"Jewell said Tuesday from his home in Nashville, Tenn. "It's two hours of nonstop music. It rolls from one artist to the next. It's a seamless thing."
As Jewell could attest, it's rare to have a seamless music career. It's been five years since the 47-year-old Jewell first basked in the spotlight provided by the upstart American Idol-like "Nashville Star"on the USA Network. After becoming the show's first winner at the honky tonk-tested age of 41, Jewell landed the record contract he had been coveting ever since entertaining the notion of being a professional musician while in college at Arkansas State University, where he managed to walk on the football team as a scout team quarterback.
Jewell, who still has family living throughout the state including locally in Springdale and Lavaca, dropped out of ASU in the middle of his junior year to pursue music as a full-time occupation while doing odd jobs such as selling cable TV packages and detailing cars to support "his music habit"during a journey that began in Dallas and ended in Nashville.
"It opened that door that in any other way wasn't going to be open,"Jewell said of his experience on the TV show.
Under the wings of mammoth label Columbia Records, the man who made a name for himself initially as a demo singer by performing more than 4,000 songs in eight years watched a self-titled 2003 album go gold and reach the top of the Billboard Top Country Albums chart with radio favorites such as "Help Pour Out the Rain (Lacey's Song)"and "Sweet Southern Comfort."Both songs jumped to as high as No. 3 on the Billboard Country Singles & Tracks chart -- the first song in 2003, the latter in 2004.
Although his second major-label effort," Times Like These,"reached No. 5 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart in 2005, Jewell and the record executives at Sony Music Nashville decided to part.
Jewell continued to tour with a gathering of new songs but no label, until he made up his mind earlier this year to release his next album under his own newly formed label, Diamond Dust Records.
"I'm not going to wait around on Nashville to pick me up an stick me back on a pedestal. I'm gonna do this thing my own way,"Jewell said.
Jewell's latest album, in which he had a creative hand in all 13 songs, is certainly not one to toe the line of political correctness. The album's first promoted single is "This Ain't Mexico,"a tune that states the singer's opinion on illegal Mexican immigrants.
"It's one of those songs where people are going to love it or hate it depending on where they fall politically,"he said.
So far, the polarizing piece has been met with cheers from his fan base. During an election year, Jewell recalled one fan's recent sentiments following a concert: "You've said more in four minutes than most politicians say in four years."
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