Friday Night In Dixie Review

Although it appears as if Rhett Akins just recently resurfaced on the country music scene after seemingly falling off the face of the earth in 1997 after his 3rd release for Decca Records, he's had more than enough to keep him busy. "I have been away from radio as far as new songs go but fortunately for us we�ve had two or three songs that radio continues to play a lot. That Ain�t My Truck, Don�t Get Me Started and She Said Yes, continue to see constant airplay on radio and that kept us at least totally not forgotten about. During that time I have stayed on the road just about the entire time from �99 til now."

With three successful records under his belt, the closure of Decca and Rhett growing tired of the political wranglings of the record business, the time seemed right for a much needed break. Deciding to take the time to concentrate on what he loved, Rhett concentrated on his touring and songwriting. "I didn�t do anything for the first year and a half except tour, I was kind of glad to be free for awhile, from all the pressure and the strain of making albums, and all the stuff that goes along with that. I just wanted to be free for awhile without someone constantly watching me and calling me and making sure I�m behaving right." he laughs.

With renewed energy and a concentrated focus on music, Rhett found himself rewarded with a consistent and loyal fan base that didn't wane despite the lack of media and industry exposure. "We had just as many people coming to the shows as we did when we just started you know. I want to thank all my country fans for sticking with me. They do stick with you through thick and thin. They�ve been waiting patiently for the new record and I�ve been writing just as many songs as I could write, getting the ready for when the opportunity came to make a new record."

With no label constraints hindering his creativeness, Rhett found himself free to explore and test his musical limits. Knowing Rhett's desire to move towards a more southern rock edged sound, his manager arranged for him to team up with Charlie Daniels for a writing session in Nashville. "I�ve always been leaning more towards the more rockin� edge and the label (Decca) was kind of 'iffy' about that. They wanted to keep me squeaky clean, be the second George Strait. I like some of that stuff, but I just like the rock too much. Finally when I got out of Decca, my manager went there�s nothing holding us back, let�s go over to Charlie�s and see what you come up with. It was really cool. He was so easy, and he was pretty quick too. We didn�t sit around mulling over this song, we probably had it done in an hour and a half, he was spitting out lines right and left."

The end result was the song Friday Night In Dixie and a new forged friendship. Soon after Charlie invited Rhett out to the farm to work on recording. Working with Charlie in the studio proved to be a different experience than Rhett had been used to. "No pressure. If it comes it comes. If it doesn�t it doesn�t. Don�t worry about it. He doesn�t believe in forcing. If the song wants to show up today it�ll show up. If it doesn�t let�s wrestle with it a little bit, if we bring it on and it still doesn�t, forget it, we�ll try it again tomorrow. I am not used to that. I�m used to: �We�ve got these players from six til ten and if we don�t have three songs cut by then that�s too bad. It�s all about studio time and the money and the players have to go play on someone else�s record and all that kind of stuff," he says, and then adds with a laugh "...the producer's got to go to the country club and play golf at one."

Taking the newly created project on the tour with him, the road sales, coupled with those from his online website, proved to be successful."I thought we sold more than we should have with no promotion, no radio play. At that point I took it to Tower Records in Nashville to see what would happen in a record store, and they called me about once every two weeks wanting another box of them."

Spurred on by the desire to share the project with a larger audience Rhett decided to approach independent labels to see if the opportunity existed to get the record out to a larger audience. Following the advice of Charlie Daniels and a few other industry colleagues, Rhett knocked first on the door of Audium Records. After a 10 minute meeting with label chief Nick Hunter, he found himself a new record deal.

"It was like 'Tell me what you want?'� he recalls "I said 'I want some singles out there, I want my records on the shelves' and he said 'All right, call your lawyer and we�ll work it out.' They are really easy to work with." he shares "We�re not all about the big bull-crap, we�re not all about spending billions of dollars to get it advertised, and having the single out there for four months before the album hits the stores, the typical Nashville way to sell a record. The song is barely out but who cares, put in on the shelves, someone is going to see it and buy it. You don�t have to spend $200,000 to make a great record."

Noted for allowing its artists the kind of creative freedom not found on major labels, Audium's track record appealed to Rhett. "Obviously, I liked the success I had with the major label but I don�t like having to go through all the political crap. It�s like, �let�s just do it the way it feels good,� instead of this preconceived way."

He continues, "I think Nashville found a formula that works for Tim McGraw or for Garth, or whoever, and they run everybody on that label through the exact same deal that they ran Tim through.Their personality might not fit the way Tim was marketed. Their music might not fit the same type of people Tim�s music did, and then they can�t understand why the record didn�t sell. And then it�s like �he sucks, get him out of here, get somebody else!' I think each artist needs to be treated individually, and whatever their strengths are that�s where you need to go, not just do the same thing for me that they did for Charlie Daniels or Daryle Singletary or whoever, do what�s ever best for them. I�ve been in the business seven years, I�m not an expert, but I think I know what I�m capable of and what I want to do, and what I don�t want to do at this point, but I�d rather be over here at Audium than at a major label going through the same thing again."

With the backing of Audium now secured, the album underwent a few minor changes before being released nationally on March 26th. Dropping off one song from the independent version allowed them to make room for two new tracks: Highway Sunrise (the current radio single) and 'In Your Love'.

The album also includes a stripped down version of his 1995 hit 'That Ain't My Truck.' "That�s the way it was originally written anyway, just on an acoustic guitar. I think on this version you can feel more of the pain in the song. We slowed it down a little bit. This has been my biggest song and radio stations still play it all the time, so, if they are going to still be playing it, let�s give them a little different version of it."

Friday Night In Dixie is clearly representative of culmination of Rhett's musical influences."You can hear more of my influences on this album than any other. The result is a blending of country and southern rock. That's what I'm all about. It's my true roots. It's what I love."

Akins roots are deep and widespread on both sides of the musical fence. "If I was a tree I�d have apples, bananas, oranges and pears all growing off the same tree" he laughs, "I�ve got so many different kind of roots." Citing influences that range from George Strait to Waylon, Charlie Daniels and George Jones to Bill Monroe, The Rolling Stones, Kiss, and Van Halen, Rhett incorporated them into the on Friday Night In Dixie.

"Friday Night In Dixie you can definitely tell that�s Charlie�s influence. The same with the song �Trouble With A Woman� and 'White Lies, Blue Eyes� sound real Rolling Stones."

The David Lee Murphy penned 'Trouble With A Woman' clearly stands out as one of the albums highlights. "I just happened to be talking to a publisher one day and he handed me a CD of David Lee Murphy songs that had never been recorded. I love David Lee, I think he�s got that mix of John Cougar and the Rolling Stones sound." he shares, "I popped the CD in and as soon as this song came on, I just loved it from the start. I thought it sounded like the Stones and I thought that the story of the song was real funny. The whole song you think the guy�s going to trash women for their bad attitude and at the end of the song it�s �the reason they�ve got the bad attitude is because of men�. I thought it was a real cool way of saying that, plus I just loved the cruise on it."

And 'cruise' is just what Friday Night In Dixie does...from slow country ballads, to southern rockers, to the acoustic simplicity of the revamped 'That Ain't My Truck.' Rhett clearly tests his artistic range on this album without losing site of his country roots.