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Biography
If Warner Bros. Records had waited much longer to release
Travis Tritt's first greatest hits package, the company would have had
to make it a double album. As it is, Greatest Hits - From The Beginning
adds up to a full album-and-a-half of milestone music. It offers 15 songs,
including ten No. 1 singles from Tritt's first four albums; plus a new
Steve Earle composition and a thoroughly charming version of the 1955 Platters
classic "Only You."
The label's timing is just fine with Tritt, though. "I think you ought to have a really solid collection," he says. "A lot of greatest hits albums I see these days have four or five hits and the rest is pretty much filler material. So we wanted to have an album that had a good 12 or 13 hits. Also, this is my sixth year of making records for Warner Bros. I felt like this album was a good way to close the chapter on the first part of my career and open up a new one. We're going to use a lot of the time this album is giving us to write songs for the next album-which is scheduled to be out next vear. Songwriting is the important part, and that takes time -- especially when you're trying to keep up a road schedule that's as heavy as ours has been.
Tritt's hectic schedule has also included several acting roles as well. Just to mention a few of his many on-screen endeavors, he's appeared in an episode of Tales From The Crypt for HBO. He completed two TV projects: a show for "Elvis Week" called Touch The Dream, and a Coming Home special for the Disney Channel.
For the latter, Tritt says, "I went back to my hometown and did a concert in a small club there, which I hadn't played in forever. Then we went back behind the scenes a little bit at my home. We probably showed more of what I'm like when I'm not on stage than I've ever done before."
In addition to the self-discovery acting provides him, Tritt says he learned some things about himself writing his 1994 autobiography, Ten Feet Tall And Bulletproof (with cowriter Michael Bane). He admits that he was initially reluctant to write about himself at such an early stage of his life and career. But he adds that his publisher finally persuaded him that fans would be interested both in his own progress and in the current state of country music. According to Tritt, writing the book gave him a much-needed perspective: "When your career is taking off and you're trying to get things going in this business, it's almost like a rocket ride. You don't take the time to stop and really pay attention to what's happening to you as it's happening because there's just too much going on. To go back and reflect on it made me realize just exactly what had happened to me in a short period of time and how fortunate I've been. It's been quite a ride so far."
From high school in 1981, Tritt met Warner Bros. promotion man Danny Davenport, who took samples of Tritt's music to the Warner Bros. Nashville A&R Department and persuaded the label's talent scouts to go see the singer/songwriter in action. Impressed by Tritt's artful fusion of traditional country music, southern rock and bluegrass and by his engaging stage presence, the label signed him. Country Club, his debut single, hit the charts in September 1989, and promptly went Top 10. In 1991, he won the Country Music Assocation's Horizon Award, and in 1993 shared a Grammy with Marty Stuart for Best Vocal Collaboration. He rocked the Super Bowl in 1993 with a rousing halftime performance in Atlanta's Georgiadome. In 1994, he shared Album of the Year honors for his contribution to Common Thread: The Songs Of The Eagles. Tritt sang the Eagles signature song "Take It Easy" on the album and was a catalyst in making "hell freeze over" by reuniting the band for the filming of the "Take It Easy" video.
Since the release of Country Club, his first album in 1990, Tritt has created a catalog that includes It's All About To Change (1991), t-r-o-u-b-l-e (1992), A Travis Tritt Christmas: Loving Time Of The Year (1992) and Ten Feet Tall And Bulletproof (1994), in addition to this newest collection. To date, he has sold more than five million albums.
His video packages consist of A Celebration: A Musical Tribute To The Spirit Of The Disabled American Veteran, It's All About To Change, Ten Feet Tall And Bulletproof plus Greatest Hits - From The Beginning: The Video (a companion piece to the new album). Country Music Television spotlighted Tritt's video accomplishments in 1995 when it cited him as its Artist of the Month.
In Greatest Hits - From The Beginning, Tritt points out, really does go back to his beginning in the music business. "I wrote 'Put Some Drive In Your Country' at the graveside of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, down in Macon, Georgia, when I was playing at a little club in the Best Western hotel there. That was in 1987, I believe. 'Help Me Hold On,' I wrote in 1988, before I got signed to Warner Bros. -- or before they released my first record."
After that would come such landmark singles as "Country Club," "I'm Gonna Be Somebody," "Anymore," "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'," "Here's A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)," "Drift Off To Dream," "Can I Trust You With My Heart," "t-r-o-u-b-l-e," "Tell Me I Was Dreaming," "Foolish Pride" and "Ten Feet Tall And Bulletproof," all of which are included in this new package. Tritt wrote or co-wrote nine of the selections.
"'Sometimes She Forgets,'" Tritt explains, "is a Steve Earle song that came my way several months ago. I really liked it, so I worked it up with my band and we began performing it in our show. It has gone over extremely well. I wish I had an opportunity to do that with every song that I do."
"Only You", the other new song on the album, was featured
in the movie Sgt. Bilko, which starred Steve Martin in the title
role. It will also mark Tritt's second appearance on camera in a theatrical
release (the other was in The Cowboy Way). Tritt's music
has been featured on the soundtracks of My Cousin Vinny ("The Bible
Belt"), Honeymoon In Vegas ("Burnin' Love") and The
Cowboy Way (title track).
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