Craig Morgan: Standing up for the red, white and blue
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Country singer Craig Morgan
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The Three Rivers Regatta would have been hard-pressed to find a more red-white-and-blue guy for the Fourth of July weekend than Craig Morgan.
Not only did the country singer from Kingston Springs, Tenn., spend more than 10 years in the U.S. Army, when he came home he worked construction, wore the badge of a sheriff's deputy and even did time at a Walmart.
Short of being a farmer -- like his grandfather -- it's a pretty solid foundation for singing country music songs.
"I'm grateful for all of the things I've done in my life," he says. "It's given me a great insight and a lot of experience and a lot of opportunity -- some good, some bad -- but all of it made me who I am. And in turn, that makes it easier for me to do this kind of music, because this kind of music is pretty much the middle-class everyday man -- and woman. And that's the kind of stuff I write and sing about."
The country star, who got his start like so many artists, singing demos in Nashville, debuted in 2000 with a self-titled album and has scored 17 country hits, including "That's What I Love About Sunday," "International Harvester" and "Redneck Yacht Club." He's also been nominated twice by the Academy of Country Music for Top New Male Vocalist.
Bob Oermann, a columnist for Music Row magazine, wrote, "Craig Morgan is country music's champion of the Everyman -- a loyal husband and father, unblushingly sentimental, tough enough to kick your butt if you cross him, and the kind of friend everyone would like to have."
For the past few months he was kicking butt in the opening slot on the Carrie Underwood tour. "She was a sweetheart," he says. "She truly is the all-American girl."
Mr. Morgan came to the party with his fifth album, "That's Why," which spawned the hits "Bonfire" and "Love Remembers." The most recent single, one that stood out during the shows, was "This Ain't Nothin'," a song about a man who loses everything in a fire but has a firm grip on what is important in life.
"It's just one of those songs, to me, that is reflective of this country," he says. "We've experienced a lot of bad things in the past, but we've always overcome them and been made stronger and better for those things that we have overcome. Sometimes failure, as bad as it can be at the time, can be a good thing."
The song resonates when he plays it here, and it's especially powerful when performed for troops in the war zones, which he's done now on eight trips.
First Published July 1, 2010 12:00 am
