Fresh Horses [Bonus Track] (CD - 1995)

Personnel includes: Garth Brooks (vocals); Mark Casstevens, Leigh Reynolds (acoustic guitar); Chris Leuzinger, Gordon Kennedy (electric guitar); Bruce Bouton (steel guitar); Rob Hajacos, Jimmy Mattingly (fiddle); Ed Foote (hurdy

gurdy); Bobby Wood (piano, organ, keyboards); Mike Chapman (bass); Milton Sledge (drums, percussion); Sam Bacco (percussion); Trisha Yearwood, Susan Ashton (background vocals).

Recorded at Jack's Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee.

Personnel: Garth Brooks (vocals); Susan Ashton, Trisha Yearwood (vocals); Leigh Reynolds, Mark Casstevens (acoustic guitar); Chris Leuzinger, Gordon Kennedy (electric guitar); Bruce Bouton (steel guitar); Ed Foote (hurdy-gurdy); Rob Hajacos, Jimmy Mattingly (fiddle); Connie Ellisor, John Catchings, Kristin Wilkinson, Nashville String Machine, Jim Grosjean, Robert Mason , Mary Kathryn Vanosdale, Carl Gorodetzky, Pamela Sixfin, David Davidson , Lee Larrison, Alan Umstead, David Angell, Catherine Umstead (strings); Bobby Wood (keyboards); Milton Sledge (drums, percussion); Sam Bacco (percussion).

Recording information: Jack's Tracks Recording Studio, Nashville, TN.

Photographer: Beverly Parker.

Loaded with the populist and humanist touches that differentiate his brand of modern country from that of the Nashville boy-crooners riding his coat-tails, FRESH HORSES continues Garth Brooks' streak of exciting, fresh-faced albums. It's not just that the Oklahoma-born singer has created a platform that offers something for every country music connoisseur--the instrumentation and song structures nod toward the traditional, the booming sound hints at southern fried and arena-rock, the lyrical stance is as progressive as Music City gets--but the fact that Brooks clearly reaches out to each of these constituencies, and is quite natural doing it.

Among Garth's contributions to country has been the infusion of that old-time rock and roll spirit to Nashville's age-old conventions. On FRESH HORSES, Brooks once again drinks from that fruitful well with memorable results. "The Old Stuff" is a reminiscence about life on the road "back when the old stuff was new," and gives guitarists Chris Leuzinger and Gordon Kennedy some space to do a Silver Bullet Band-styled battle with Bobby Wood's keyboard; "The Fever" updates an old Aerosmith thrasher for the rodeo set; and "Rollin'," a portrait of a female trucker's life on the road, is a hard-driving piece of honky-tonk with a vocal that's pure Elvis.

That woman behind the wheel brings up another point that separates Brooks and FRESH HORSES from country's other hunk-alikes: the strength of his female characters. The fate-bitten, single mother nurturingly caring for her offspring ("That Ol' Wind"), the wife drifting into the sunset after the sudden demise of her one true love ("The Beaches Of Cheyenne") and the trucker choosing her own path rather than letting her man do it for her ("Rollin'") leap above easy cliches, and embody the respect Brooks approaches the so-called fairer sex with. This makes him not only a talented country star, but one who's easy to admire.

Garth Brooks had to move forward in a dramatic way with Fresh Horses, his first new album since 1993. Following the massive successive of The Hits -- which effectively recapped why the singer became the single most popular American performer of the '90s -- Brooks positioned himself for a new direction with Fresh Horses. The problem is, he doesn't know which way he should go. Throughout the album, he swings back and forth between country and rock without any sense of purpose. Brooks tries to rework Aerosmith's "The Fever" into a rowdy rodeo country-rocker, but the end result is forced and half-hearted. The Aerosmith cover illustrates the problems of Fresh Horses: Brooks is trying too hard to cover new territory and restore hardcore honky tonk grit to his slick country-rock. When he lets his guard down -- such on as the melancholy ballad "The Beaches of Cheyenne" and the sassy, suggestive "It's Midnight Cinderella" -- he can still come up with winners, but those moments don't come frequently on Fresh Horses. [Brooks rereleased the album in 2000, adding the track "To Make You Feel My Love."] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Garth Brooks had to move forward in a dramatic way with Fresh Horses, his first new album since 1993. Following the massive successive of The Hits -- which effectively recapped why the singer became the single most popular American performer of the '90s -- Brooks positioned himself for a new direction with Fresh Horses. The problem is, he doesn't know which way he should go. When he lets his guard down -- such on as the melancholy ballad "The Beaches of Cheyenne" and the sassy, suggestive "It's Midnight Cinderella" -- he can still come up with winners. [Brooks rereleased the album in 2000, adding the track "To Make You Feel My Love."] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize