Lawrence welcomed back to country music

He’s making a comeback on his own label, Rocky Comfort Records.

By JOHN BENSON

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NASHVILLE — Country singer Tracy Lawrence has discovered that lightning can strike twice.

It took a while, but the 39-year-old singer-guitarist recently returned to the top of the country charts with his latest album “For the Love.”

“My motivation for the album was to really go back to the inspirations I drew from when I cut my very first record when I was young and got to Nashville,” said Lawrence, calling from his Nashville home. “So I cut a traditional album from top to bottom. I really wanted it to be a little bit more mature. I didn’t want the album to feel dated, but I wanted it to be very country and not pop in any way.

“I drew from Buck Owens influences and George Strait and Merle Haggard. There’s some swing and shuffle and things I haven’t done on a record in a while. It’s a very comfortable place for me.”

A long road

It’s been a long, unexpected road for Lawrence. In the early ’90s, no other artist appeared to be on the fast track to Garth Brooks super stardom more than Texas-born, Arkansas-raised Lawrence, whose 1991 debut “Sticks and Stones” started a string of top 10 albums (1993’s “Alibis” and 1994’s “I See It Now”) and hit singles (“Sticks and Stones,” “Alibis,” “Can’t Break It to My Heart,” “My Second Home” and “If the Good Die Young”).

Sure the traditionally influenced singer with a Nash-Vegas sound had other hits, but as the years turned into a decade, and the albums and singles didn’t chart as high as they used to, the artist was confronted with the reality that his career may have been on the downside. More so, he began to understand the irony of how his early success may have set him up for failure.

“I think it had a great effect on it, and I’m sure I did take some things for granted,” Lawrence said. “When you’re young and successful and all of a sudden making a lot of money, with hit records and people are telling you how great you are, you kind of get trapped in a bubble.”

Different perspective

“After seeing a lot of it go away and then struggling to get back on the charts, I definitely have a much different perspective at this stage of life about being a celebrity and recording star and all that’s attached to it. I’m going to savor it a lot more this time, and I guess I’ve just been humbled by it all. I didn’t have that humbleness before,” he said.

Making his comeback of sorts even sweeter is the fact “For the Love” is the debut release on Lawrence’s own record label, Rocky Comfort Records. 

“I’m sure there were a lot of people that had written me off, that’s just the nature of the business, with the flavor-of-the-month and all of these new kids coming in,” said Lawrence, who opens for Gretchen Wilson on Sunday at Eastwood Stadium in Niles. “And here I am pushing 40. I had a great run in the ’90s, and to be re-embraced and welcomed back into the fold is a pretty overwhelming feeling at this point.

“It’s awfully hard to get a career going one time, but to really see one take off again like mine has is something that you really don’t see very much these days.”