Garth In ‘Sevens’ Heaven America’s Honky-Tonk Hero Is Back With A Long-Awaited Record That Smells Like A Winner

Country superstar Garth Brooks is stubbornly honest in his music and his business dealings.

He stood firm this summer when his record label downsized just a month before his new album was due for release. Brooks shocked the industry by holding the album back until the label managers could show him they were ready to promote it. Very few artists would have the moxie - or the clout - to confront a corporate giant so bluntly.

“However you want to put it - screaming about it … crying about it - I just had to do it to protect my music,” Brooks said last week in an interview. “Now we’ll see if it was the right choice for me.”

His much-awaited album, “Sevens,” came out Tuesday. There have been 5 million advance orders, but that’s actually down a million from the original release date, which would have coincided with his HBO concert special on Aug. 7 at New York’s Central Park.

“Somebody made this cut without even thinking what it would do to a Garth Brooks project,” Brooks said of his hassles with the parent company, EMI Recorded Music. “Now, I understand that mine is not the only project on the label, but for me I’ve got to take care of my kids - and these records are my kids.”

The new album is worth the wait, if you’re among those who have helped Brooks sell more than 60 million albums in the past. He ranks third behind the Beatles on the all-time sales list.

Still, he’s nervous about the release. “When you think you’re not going to deliver it, there’s a part of you that says, ‘Oh, good, I don’t have to worry about people showing up to get it or not.’ But now that you’re back in the game, your stomach is upset. But it’s a good feeling.”

Brooks has a right to feel good because the disc smacks of another winner. It starts with the hot-picking honky-tonk of “Longneck Bottle” (which he co-wrote with Steve Wariner) and swings through 14 flavorful cuts, from the serious to the comedic, befitting his broad appeal.

There’s the acoustic ballad “She’s Gonna Make It” (a tale of a woman who’s better off since breaking up with her husband), the satirical “Two Pina Coladas” (a Jimmy Buffett-like beach tune, unusual for Brooks), the rocking “Take the Keys to My Heart,” the reflective “In Another’s Eyes” (a duet with Trisha Yearwood), the stunning antiwar tune “Belleau Wood,” and two inspirational lifestyle tunes, “Do What You Gotta Do” and “How You Ever Gonna Know.” The latter contains the verse, “If you never dare to try, how you ever gonna know if you’re the best?” It’s a true-blue, Brooksian statement.

“I love inspirational songs,” he said. “If I had my way, I’d probably have 14 cuts on there like that.”

Brooks could have used some inspiration in dealing with his record label, though he feels that his perseverance won out. He also earned respect from other artists, who feel that he stood up for his rights.

“I got the sweetest letter from Reba (McEntire) about it. And there’s a woman at the label named Deana Carter, who really keeps those people on their toes. Nothing gets by her,” he said.

“We’ve also had meetings at the label since the restructuring. The artists are now coming to these meetings with the label people. Hopefully, we’re starting to build a family.”

Speaking of family, Brooks was interrupted occasionally during our phone interview by his two young children roughhousing with each other in his home near Nashville. Brooks tried to calm them down, but in commenting on their stubbornness, said, “I wonder where they get that from!”

It wasn’t just his persistence, though, that makes the new album one of the most substantial of his career. He gives most of the credit to longtime producer Allen Reynolds, who guided Brooks through a funk that bothered him when his last disc, “Fresh Horses,” sold only 4 million copies, chicken feed by Brooks’s standards.

“This is Allen Reynolds’ album,” he said of the new “Sevens,” which is Brooks’s seventh album. “I think Allen saw me questioning myself and wondering if I still had a future and how long was it.

“So he just sort of took over and drove. Then the tour came and I started getting my feet underneath me. And, thank God, the people were showing up and giving me that confidence.

“But Allen never gave the wheel back over. In a good way, he just kept driving, even coming down to the sequencing and the number of songs.

“I wanted 11 and he wanted 14. I always get what I want, but no way this time. He just didn’t let go.”

Brooks co-wrote six tunes, including the frisky “Cowboy Cadillac” and the adult-contemporary ballad “A Friend to Me.” But Reynolds ended up pushing several other songs on him, some of which appear personal, such as the banjo-flecked “Do What You Gotta Do.”

“I can’t remember a time when he’s been wrong,” Brooks said of Reynolds, who “has always been more than a producer for me. He’s been a companion and a partner.

“His house is a place where I spend a lot of time. … Allen helped me through this whole record label thing. He said, ‘Hey pal, stick it out, because you’re right.”’

Reynolds also endorsed “Belleau Wood,” a stately ballad that Brooks and Joe Henry wrote. It tells of German and American soldiers who lay in their trenches and began singing the Christmas carol “Silent Night” together during World War I.

“It’s a true story,” said Brooks. “And the Germans and Americans did more than that. They actually met out in the middle of the battlefield and exchanged pens and socks and stuff for Christmas.”

It’s the last track, but that’s always a special placement for Brooks.

“The last track on each record is my favorite one. It always is,” Brooks said. “And, as Allen said, ‘This song is about the good side of us as humans. This is something that people need to hear.”’

In the next year, look for more heightened activity from Brooks. He hopes to undertake a 10-city worldwide tour to raise money for children’s charities and release a boxed set of his previous albums. He promises bonus cuts, all at a “shockingly low price.”

He also plans to release a full duet album with Yearwood, a close friend who started in Nashville at the same time Brooks did.

“We’re going to blow the doors off of 1998 as far as putting stuff out there,” he said. “I’m not saying we’re going to blow the doors off sales, but we’re going to blow them off for product availability.

“Now if people show up or not (to buy it), that’s their call. If they do take us up on it, we stand to get a lot of new stuff out there.”