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To watch Rodney Atkins' music videos, please Click Here Country Star Rodney Atkins Keeps Rolling With Several Hits, and Wins ACM Top New Male Vocalist Award
By Jonathan Widran Any hardcore country music fan who has been following Rodney Atkins these past few years might have wondered how he could win the Academy of Country Music’s (ACM)’s Top New Male Vocalist Award in May. His 2006 breakthrough album If You’re Going Through Hell is one of the genre’s success stories of the year, but the singer/songwriter actually broke through to fame in 2003-4 with his Curb Records debut Honesty, which spawned the Top 5 Billboard country hit “Honesty (Write Me A List).” “It’s kind of weird the way the awards work,” Atkins said in a recent interview. “If you’ve never been nominated in this category before, you can get a shot at it. You can actually be nominated twice, and if you fail to win either of those times, that’s it. When I got the award, my wife was there crying in the audience, and I thought about my family and the folks at Curb who had been championing me for 10 years. For a moment, the award gave credibility to those who have believed in me and encouraged my career.” “It’s amazing when you’ve watched the show for so long, even as a little kid, and then to be there and be part of it,” he adds. “It’s something I dreamed about for a long time, and I’m so grateful. It’s a great stepping-stone for me and it’s something the announcer can say every night when they introduce me. I’m also really excited because the majority of people who have won in the past have gone on to have humongous careers.” Honesty may have broken the Nashville ice, but If You’re Going Through Hell continues to be an out and out phenomenon. Released last July, it peaked at #2 on Billboard’s pop album chart and debuted at #1 on the country albums chart. The infectious, inspiring title track - “If You’re Going Through Hell (Before The Devil Even Knows)” - spent four weeks atop the country singles chart, earning honors for being Billboard’s Most Played Song of 2006 and the SESAC Song Of The Year.
The heartfelt follow-up single, “Watching You” co-written by Atkins about his five-year-old son Elijah (who appears in the song’s popular video), spent two weeks at #1 In addition, his current single, the album’s kickoff track “These Are My People,” is already moving up the country charts. Although the song was written by Sam Tate, Annie Tate and Dave Berg, “If You’re Going Through Hell (Before The Devil Even Knows)” is, like all of the songs the Tennessee native records, perfectly autobiographical. His journey is typical of the overnight success story that took 10 years. When Curb signed Atkins in the late ‘90s, everyone had different ideas as to how to mold his image. First they wanted him to sing like early Roy Orbison, but he felt he didn’t fit that mold at all. After several years of missteps in artist development and hiring producers who took the singer down the wrong road (which included the recording of an album in 1997 that went unreleased), CEO Mike Curb got more hands-on with Atkins and allowed his artist to experiment in finding his own path. “It finally came down to one guy, a friend I was writing songs with named Ted Hewett,” Atkins says. “We started doing demos and the label said that they sounded better than most of the finished records they were getting. Honesty was the first album we co-produced together, and it’s an incredible partnership. Right now, we have another single to go off of the current album before we get back in the studio, but we’re trying to find time between all my touring to write and find great songs that people can pump their fists and sing along to. “I really think success in country music comes down to great songs,” he adds. “I think an okay singer singing a great song works better than a great singer singing a bad song. I’m one of those guys who has to believe what I’m singing. I have learned to write about the poetry I find in everyday life instead of just trying to be a slick songwriter. That’s where a song like ‘Watching You’ came from, just hanging out with my son. Some can write about things they’ve never experienced, but I’m not that guy. It’s the same thing picking songs from outside writers. I wasn’t an artist who ever got a lot of hype but when ‘If You’re Going Through Hell’ started getting airplay, it thankfully connected with people.” That’s a major understatement, typical of the gratitude-filled way the humble Atkins expresses himself. Beyond its strong sales and chart success, the song has literally touched and even changed thousands of lives. Atkins is on the road some 200 days a year, playing over 130 shows. He recently performed at the Grand Ole Opry and at the CMA Music Festival in Nashville, in between his numerous dates opening around the country for Martina McBride and Little Big Town. This fall, he is joining Brad Paisley on a tour called Bonfires And Amplifiers.
For all that, it was a more intimate concert moment that sticks in his mind as one of the most profound of the past year. Last October, he visited Maddie Trudel, a seven-year-old who was dying of cancer, at a hospital in St. Clair, Michigan. He sang “If You’re Going Through Hell, which was her favorite song, to her at her bedside. He had learned of her illness when someone sent him a link to the website of Free Press, which was running a series of articles about her life. “That was a very special moment for me, but seriously, there were 50 other kids and families just like Maddie’s, that I heard about through St. Jude’s Children Hospital and the Make A Wish Foundation,” Atkins says. “They told me that my song is what encouraged them and carried them through. I’ve also heard from firemen, soldiers, people on the verge of suicide who said listening to the songs saved their lives, even people who just locked their keys and their kids in the car. Just folks from all walks of life. Maybe it’s not as big a deal, but on the day the album came out, I had a fender bender and the first thing that popped into my head was the song!” “The way ‘If You’re Going Through Hell’ has impacted so many people’s lives is the epitome of living the dream as a performer and recording artist,” he adds. “The coolest thing is literally realizing I can go anywhere and sing this song and others to the crowd and they are singing right back to you. I’m not a doctor out there saving lives, but I’m making a difference with songs. I’m not just singing it and then the moment’s gone, but it’s sticking with people. It was never my dream to be famous. I just wanted to be able to make music I like for a living, and it still shocks me when people recognize me. My focus now is on writing and singing more songs that can grab people’s hearts and move them in the same way this one did.” Jonathan Widran is a free-lance music/entertainment journalist who contributes regularly to Music Connection, Jazziz and All Music Guide. He can be reached at Few522@aol.com. Special Feature: Streaming VideoYou can watch the video of Rodney Atkins' hit "If You're Going Through Hell" and his other videos by clicking the link below:
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