NASHVILLE, TN. (Arista Nashville/RLG) - Having bowed their brand new Hillbilly
Deluxe at No 1 on Billboard's Country Album chart and No 3 on Billboard's all-genre Top 200 Albums - behind Kanye West's Late Registration and G-Unit's
Tony Yayo - and having the No 1 hit on both Billboard and
Radio & Records' Country Singles' chart with the raucous "Play Something Country," how does country's hardest-rockin' honky tonk duo follow-up? Well, by remaining at the top of the Country Album chart for a second straight week.
"It feels so good when we play anything from this record out there live," says Kix Brooks of the combustive stage presence and wistful vocals. "In a lot of places, these songs get the same response as our hits, so I guess it's okay to say that people liked it."
"We worked hard on this record, not that we don't on all of them. This one has fire in it. It takes us from those all too familiar beer joints that we cut our teeth in to the front row of church," says Ronnie Dunn of the seek and destroy vocal chords. "I feel like we're barely scratching the surface with the first single 'Play Something Country,' because there's so much more on this record."
Having just packed off two semis full of supplies for the people in Jackson, Mississippi, Brooks & Dunn take a break from their rollicking Deuce's Wild Tour - featuring Muzik Mafiosos Big & Rich and a few of their rowdy cohorts, along with the Warren Brothers - to set up shop for Brooks' annual cutting horse competition: the Music City Futurity.
With Entertainment Weekly hailing the album as "perfectly drawn vignettes of Saturday night sin and swagger" and proclaiming the duo "the premier practitioners of the sawdust serenade," Billboard weighs in with "redneck genius... a big, broad, bold record" and USA Today raves about the pairs, "soulful country…," saying the pair, "up the ante with 'Play Something Country'," Hillbilly Deluxe boldly walks the line between hard-hitting honk and deep jukebox revelry. Then again, when you bring in Tony Brown at the helm and get help from a cast that includes Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill, Little Feat's Bill Payne, Joe Ely/John Mellencamp vet David Grissom, Steve Winwood alum Michael Rhodes, Southern California steel stalwart Dan Dugmore and a bevy of Nashville's finest, you know the hosts of this year's Country Music Association Awards are firing on all 8 cylinders.
"Hey, as long as people keep likin' 'em, we're gonna keep makin' 'em," says Brooks with a laugh. "Hitting people with music and throwing parties and calling 'em concerts is a pretty good way to make a living - as long as the people we're doing it for are digging it. This (remainig at No 1) is pretty big 'Yeah' to me!"
