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Monday, 17 October, 2011 8:50 PM
CMA New Artist Spotlight: 'Aaron
Lewis'
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Photo
credit: Fran Strine
New
country artist Aaron Lewis
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| By
Bob Doerschuk |
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2011 CMA Close Up News Service |
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Not every newcomer can
persuade Charlie Daniels, George Jones and Chris Young to join in
on his debut single. Then again, Aaron Lewis isn’t your typical
newcomer. He’d already built a massive following as frontman
for Staind when he came down to Nashville to explore a side to his
music seldom exposed on the alt-metal circuit.
Town Line, produced
by Lewis and James Stroud and released on R&J Records, brings
that side to life. These five songs and two bonus tracks, all written
solely by Lewis, combine sensitivity and introspection, poetic soul
and fierce pride in his roots. Lewis is in fact a product of rural
America, raised in Vermont and exposed by his grandfather to Merle
Haggard, Hank Williams (Senior and Junior), fishing, hunting and
communion with nature.
This background inspired
his autobiographical first single, “Country Boy.” His
voice here is worn but tough; a Dobro and raw electric guitar cast
haunted shadows, and his three stellar guests join the autobiographical
narrative. “I grew up down an old dirt road in a town you
wouldn’t know” he begins — an exquisitely crafted
line, spare, evocative and defiant. That mood sustains to the end,
qualifying “Country Boy” as a genuine anthem for Country
and the lifestyle it represents. Fans responded too, boosting sales
to near Gold status and viewing the “Country Boy” video
more than 7 million times by late June.
Lewis still lives in
the Northeast, and true to the spirit of writing from what one knows
first-hand, he offers “Massachusetts” to celebrate his
state as a patriotic icon as well as an ideal place for his family
— yet he does so with a spirit that’s right at home
with Music Row. It takes talent to paint pictures from disparate
elements — the kind of talent heard on Town Line.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
MUSICAL HERO
“My father.”
SONG YOU’D
LOVE TO COVER
“Man, I think I’ve
covered them all!”
PET PEEVE
“People who think
they deserve something without earning it.”
FAVORITE FOOD ON
THE ROAD
“There’s
nothing better than a good steakhouse.”
SOMETHING WE’D
NEVER GUESS ABOUT YOU
“I’m a trained
goldsmith. I can take a piece of wax, carve it up, cast it, turn
it into metal, polish it, set stones in it and hand you a finished
piece of jewelry.”
On The Web:
www.AaronLewisMusic.com
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