From the tiny neighborhood tavern to the big Downtown arena, Garth Brooks’ music reverberates throughout Cincinnati.
Think back to all of his performances in this town over the years – the multi-night runs 25 years ago or so at what’s now called Heritage Bank Center. He would announce the shows, and moments later the tickets would be gone.
He still does huge business at the gate. His two-show stop here May 13-14 is at Cincinnati’s biggest part-time music venue, Paul Brown Stadium.
Then there is the matter of the impact Garth’s popularity had on country music as a whole, the way he repeatedly topped the Billboard sales chart – and the country chart, as well – and turned country-music touring into a business mirroring the arena-rock circuit.
He lifted the genre. His 1990s peers became superstars as well.
And the honky-tonk-as-nightclub became a ‘90s phenomenon. I saw great shows by Merle Haggard, Marty Stuart and Willie Nelson at the long-shuttered Coyote’s in Fort Mitchell, in the center of Northern Kentucky suburbia.
I also seem to recall entering an establishment in downtown Cincinnati in the ‘90s and encountering a mechanical bull, though I could be remembering that wrong.
So let’s raise a glass to the cultural phenomenon that is Garth as he returns to town, by selecting local bars, restaurants and assorted venues appropriate for listening to his music, and the best Garth song to be played in each one:
Bobby Mackey’s
If your romantic notion of a honky tonk is a roadside bar on the outskirts of town, this longtime establishment on Route 9 has the look – perhaps the look is a little too down-home for the glitzier showbiz aesthetic Brooks brought to the genre in the ‘90s. Either way, this Wilder saloon is the spot for country music inside the 275 loop, so Garth would undoubtedly approve of the Mackey business model.
Appropriate listening music: “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association”
Nippert Stadium
Garth was a track athlete at Oklahoma State University. OSU is a member of the Big 12, the athletic conference in which the University of Cincinnati will be competing next year. That means that Garth could have interest in coming to town down the road for a big conference matchup between the Cincinnati and Oklahoma State football teams. They both have been pretty good lately – one a little better than the other.
Appropriate listening music: “Good Ride Cowboy”
Great American Ball Park
Where else is a former professional ballplayer going to go? Garth’s athletic prowess is not limited to the track. In 1999, the San Diego Padres signed Brooks to a minor-league contract and he played in several spring training games. Mike Sirotka of the Chicago White Sox is the pitcher who goes down in history as surrendering the only hit Garth notched that spring. Brooks went 1-for-22 from the plate and did not make the opening-day roster.
Appropriate listening music: “Shameless”
Outback Steakhouse
That same year, Brooks, freed from his obligations to the Padres, turned his attention to Down Under. Garth adopted the persona of Chris Gaines, a fictional brooding Australian pop singer who, with his dark bangs obscuring his eyes and matching soul patch, had a different vibe than America’s biggest country star. Brooks released a “greatest hits” album as Chris Gaines. But the bloom was off the onion. “Garth Brooks… in the Life of Chris Gaines” was a success by any other measure, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard chart, but it was not a Garth-level success and snapped his streak of chart-topping studio albums of original material dating back to 1990’s “No Fences.”
Appropriate listening music: “Lost in You”
Blind Lemon
This Mount Adams institution was a Jimmy Buffett hang back in the 1970s, and Garth did as much to re-establish the connection between Buffett and country music as anyone in the early 2000s, when the beach-country subgenre was all the rage with songs like Kenny Chesney’s “No Shoes, No Shirts, No Problems” and the Buffett-Alan Jackson hit “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” But Garth’s 1998 hit “Two Pina Coladas” started the party, and it endures as a summer anthem.
Appropriate listening music: “Two Pina Coladas”
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