Garth’s Here To Say: He’s Not Cold-Hearted

Country music

Asked if he thinks his gimmicky genius for putting people at the edge of their seats has detracted from his popular perception as a creative artist, Garth Brooks says he believes that his reputation as a business whiz has hurt his artistic recognition.

The image of a “really hard business person” sometimes makes people assume he is “real cold,” all brain and no heart, he says. As an example, he cites criticism he received about releasing the seemingly conservative big hit “American Honkytonk Bar Association” after the public’s disappointing reception of the activist liberal “We Shall Be Free,” which empathized with many minorities.

“Not one time in the lyrics of both of those songs does either one contradict the other one,” he says. “I think we can love people and be tolerant with the ways people live their lives, but at the same time (think it’s unfair to have) people working while other people who can work don’t work. I don’t think those things contradict each other at all. Love one another would be nice, but get out there and work your … off and pull your weight.”

Lari White exposed

Lari White, the only female to break into the Top 15 on the country singles chart in 1994, has been keeping the small screen hot in early 1995. White, whose second album, “Wishes,” recently was released by RCA, has been seen on three CBS-TV shows: “Happy New Year America,” “Best of Country” and “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

Marty’s big future

Marty Stuart was joined recently by his buddy Travis Tritt as well as by Levon Helm and The Band for a videotaping of an episode in his new intermittent concert series on The Nashville Network, “The Marty Party.” Meanwhile, preliminary copies of his “The Marty Party Hit Pack” were reaching the media.

“The Marty Party Hit Pack” is a 12-cut album scheduled to be released by MCA Records March 14. It contains the hits that are the guts of Stuart’s “hillbilly rock” sound as well as two new songs and a Stuart liner message in which he says: “This summer I played a fair in Colorado, and before the show I took a walk up the midway, and I stopped at a gypsy woman’s booth. I paid her to tell me about my future. She took one look at my hand and gave me my money back. It shakes me sometimes when I think about it. She said the job was too big for her to handle. …”

Jackson top nominee

You won’t know the winners until a two-and-a-half-hour live TV broadcast on June 5, but Alan Jackson leads nominees for the 29th TNN Music City News Country Awards with seven nominations. Vince Gill follows with six.