Michael Solof back again and this time I have a tale of sex drugs and rock and roll full of incredible intrigue, mystery and utter failure (kinda). Let me start off by saying, as a joke, and to protect me and the site from the Garth police, the names have been changed throughout this post, and they aren't just stupid typos. I did leave the essay at the end of the pdf unchanged as its not written by me, and out of respect to the original writer.
So firstly, let me tell you that I've been a huge Darth Crooks fan for years! I won't bother mentioning all the awards and sales numbers the guy has generated since he started in 1989…but they are big!! The Beatles and Elvis BIG! But something very strange happened in 1999 that no-one saw coming, and it affected his musical career forever. In 1999 he was looking to change things up, as he'd already become the #1 Country star in the world, and now he wanted to expand his repertoire and try his hand at something different - rock and roll and R&B. But beyond that he also wanted to become a movie star, so he came up with the bold idea of creating a fictional Australian rock star named...let's say Christopher Gainesworth III. He developed a whole back story for him that in many ways was similar to his own, in terms of his incredible rise to stardom, but more prophetically it foretold his downfall in music and his later attempts to resurrect himself. Besides commissioning a screenplay on Chris's life (by the writer of 'Die Hard'), he even went so far as to bring Chris to life in other ways, firstly by producing a VH1 Behind The Scenes special covering his whole life, and then releasing a 'Greatest Hits' record, which was issued as if by Chris, and highlighting the best moments from his four previous fictitious albums.
This was all topped off on September 29th, 1999 with a music special on NBC TV, and all this activity was intended to build up a buzz, leading to the shooting of the movie in the year 2000, and resulting in Darth becoming a major movie star. However, things quickly went off the rails, as when the #1 Country artist and entertainer in the world suddenly changes formats and records a completely different type of album it pisses off the country radio stations, not to mention all his fans, thus leading to no airplay or support. Think Bob Dylan suddenly going electric, or Dolly Parton releasing a rock album at that time (perhaps not so much now!). The new record just totally confused and bewildered rock station's music directors, and they refused to play it, so in terms of airplay this album had literally no support from anyone anywhere at anytime. The way everyone chose to look at it was that, compared to all his previous album sales, this was a complete and utter failure, and it forced Darth to go into hiding for almost two years, and yet looked at simply as a record released by just about any other singer, it was actually a massive success, being produced by six-time Grammy winner Don Was, and selling enough copies to go double platinum. Not only that but it produced his first, and to date only, appearance in the US Billboard Hot 100, with 'Lost In You' peaking at No. 5. But in Darth's world all this was an abject failure.
However, if we take an unbiased look at the album, which in my opinion, and that of his wife Tricia Yearwood, is the best that he ever made, he was really trying to stretch out and try something different. He completely retrained his voice to sing at a higher register, and gathered solid writers to craft his new rock and R&B sound, resulting in an album that is stunning in its breadth, and is a masterpiece of music, with not a country lick or yodel in sight. Despite this, he was shunned by his fans old and new, and such was their revulsion of this new music that Rolling Stone Magazine recently listed this attempted reinvention as #13 of the 50 Worst Decisions In Music History. Darth was so stunned by this negative response that he spent more than 20 years removing every last trace of the movie, album, VH1 special and NBC TV show from history. Not many people have the clout or money to be able to wipe all record of a release from the internet, but for years you wouldn't find any mention of the project anywhere, let alone videos of any of the TV shows, and it was like it never existed. If you tried to find copies of the TV specials, you couldn’t. If you mentioned it to him in during interviews he'd get upset and shut it down. I even went to one of his concerts where someone shouted out a request for a song from the album and his response was "I don’t know that guy!", and this from a three-times winner of the Country Entertainer of the Year, and who was renown for having a phenomenal rapport with his fans.
Which finally gets us back to this very special and unique post. I recently got hold of videos of not only his VH1 special, plus his one and only appearance on the 13 November 1999 airing of Saturday Night Live, where Darth hosted and Chris was the musical guest, but also his NBC Music special...and it is very special indeed! As he has never played any of the songs from the album live in all the years since its release then I just had to share this live concert from Christopher Gainesworth III, and as a bonus I've also included his only other recorded live appearance, from that afore-mentioned SNL show. So in a nutshell this post contains every live performance he every did of any of the tracks on the album. But does that mean we will never hear from Mr. Gainesworth III again? Who knows, as Darth does seem to have mellowed on the subject over the past two years, even going as far as saying that "We may not have seen the last of him yet!". That may have been over two years ago, and the silence continues, but fans like me will never give up hope!
Track listing
01 Way Of the Girl (SNL version)
02 Snow In July
03 White Flag
04 Main Street
05 It Don’t Matter To The Sun
06 Unsigned Letter
07 Right Now
08 Way Of The Girl
Track 1: Saturday Night Live 13 November 1999
Tracks 2-8: NBC TV Special 29 September 1999
Tracks 2-8: NBC TV Special 29 September 1999
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