The sun was shining at the Bass Pro Shops headquarters in Springfield Monday as a line formed over an hour ahead of the store opening. Fans arrived as early as 6:30 a.m. for a chance to see country superstar Garth Brooks. The surprise appearance marked the early release of his new studio album “Time Traveler,” which is exclusively sold at Bass Pro Shops as a part of a CD box set.
“We’re happy you’re here at the Granddaddy Store in Springfield, Missouri,” smiled Morris.
“This is why we need Johnny Morris leading our country…” Garth started to say.
Morris chuckled and cheekily as he pretended to reel in a fish, “We’d all go fish… Fishing four days a week! New national theme.”
“This was supposed to come out Black Friday and he goes 'When does it hit the warehouse?' I said, 'We’ll have it in your warehouse plenty of time before,'” Garth continued. “He says, 'Well the day it hits the warehouse let’s put it out!' So we moved it up two weeks early and today is the release day.”
Brooks and Morris unboxed the new set on Brooks’ Studio G podcast, which aired at 6 p.m. later Monday evening. The duo shared an intimate conversation with about 200 customers listening live as they secured their box set. The limited series set contains seven discs including the new album, his previous three studio albums and three live albums including recorded performances from last year’s BPS 50 year celebration and opening of Thunder Ridge Arena. The partnership between Brooks and Bass Pro Shops extends beyond music and aims to raise $10 million towards conservation efforts in saving America’s wetlands, featuring a Bass Pro logo on the cover and photographs from the Thunder Ridge concert inside the live CD booklets.
“What Garth’s doing from his heart to help conservation and our friends at Ducks Unlimited… part of the proceeds from this new box set is going to conservation and our targeted goal is somewhere around $10 million, maybe more,” said Morris. “It’s about our wetlands, our water, everything. We cannot thank him enough.”
“We’ll make sure that $10 million gets reached for sure. We’ll see if we can’t get more than that,” Garth added. “That’s what I love about this partnership. He wants to save the wetlands, he wants to save the wildlife… We talked about the fight of the songwriter and where they’re at with streaming… Even though it’s the popular way, it’s still physical [album sales]… that’s the way those guys survive. So thank you from Nashville.”
Brooks also took time to answer fan questions including which of the new songs was his favorite; To which he replied, “The Ride,” David Allan Coe’s 1982 classic about a hitchhiker who gets picked up by the ghost of Hank Williams. The track on Time Traveler features a new verse penned by Brooks to flesh out what happened between the characters during the ride.
“I love this song and I’ve played it since I was a kid… but I always wondered what happened, because “The Ride” only addresses what happened when he picks him up and what happened when he drops him off,” Brooks explained. “I want to know what happened during the ride. So I approached [David Allen Coe] to ask if I could write the middle of the song and put it in there and they let me. I can tell you right now it's a serious ghost story. I love ghost stories like “Beaches of Cheyenne.””
In the 90’s Brooks released his first box set and in the early 2000’s, Brooks sold his second set exclusively through Wal-Mart and Sams Club.
“This idea started in the late 90’s when music was getting very expensive and CDs were 15 bucks a piece or something,” Brooks added. “[We thought] let’s put all the music from the 90’s in one box and give it to the people for an extremely low price so they could catch up. So we’ve done it twice in my career, the late 90’s, the late 2000’s and now the final one’s going to be in the early 20’s. This is pretty cool… it’s seven total albums and because it’s Johnny Morris, everybody gets it at a really decent price for Christmas.”
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