Travis Tritt

One Liner: "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" is an amazing tune, plus a bunch of rockin' originals.

Wikipedia Genre: Country, country rock, Southern rock, blues, gospel

Home: Nashville (but originally from Marietta, GA)

Poster Position: LARGE Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  One of my favorite country songs ever is covered by Travis Tritt, and I had no clue.  "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" was written by Darrell Scott and released in 1997, and that song was on constant rotation on KHYI radio station in Dallas right around the time I moved there, after college.  Tritt covered it and released the track in 2000, reaching #2 on the Hot Country Singles chart.  Pat Green and Cory Morrow had also done a version in 2001, which is honestly not as good as the original or Tritt's version.  But until just now, pulling up Tritt's Spotify and see this as his top song, I could not have told you that Tritt had anything to do with the tune.  169.8 million streams.

It's just such a good, happy, enjoy-what-you-have tune.  But also, it is good and right sometimes to think about the simple things in your life and reflect that even a normal day can be one that you recognize as a wonderful thing.  His hair is freaking badass.

James Travis Tritt has a lot of big singles that I immediately recognize as well.  Seven platinum albums, including one that is triple-platinum.  40 songs on the Hot Country Songs Billboard chart, including five number ones.  Grand Ole Opry member since 1992.  Two Grammys.  Four CMA awards.  Some of the articles I have read say that he added more southern rock into his sound than some of his contemporaries, which set him apart from them.

He started playing when he was eight, playing at school for his class and at church.  He got serious in high school when he started to write his own songs.  While still working other jobs - air conditioner repairman, furniture store, supermarket clerk - he began to record some demos with the help of a record exec, and was signed in 1987 when he was 24.  Wikipedia's description of his contract makes it sound kind of messed up.  He was obligated to give them six songs, three of which would be released as singles.  He would not be signed on for a full album unless one of those singles became a hit.  How stressful!  That first single was "Country Club," released in 1989, and it spent 26 weeks on the Hot Country Singles chart.  17.1 million streams.

Definite classic country thing, and a good play on words on the meaning of Country Club.  I like it.  After that debut album, he continued to release well-regarded new stuff.  "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" is one of those that brings out all of the crazy dancing couples who can do flips and spins and wild stuff on the floor.  His cover of "Take It Easy," that was on the Common Thread album that I wore out in my latter college days, is fantastic.  "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" sounds really familiar, like I know it from someone else.  I like that one, although I also realized that it reminds me of Bad Company's "Shooting Star."

Funny story that relates to Travis Tritt.  I have mentioned before that I really didn't know his music or know much about who he was, right?  But I have a very strong memory of one of his songs anyway.  When I was in college, I joined a fraternity.  It was a good choice, I had a lot of fun with those guys and valued that time in the end.  But pledgeship was not fun.  

I went to a tiny college with no national fraternities, and so there was little to no oversight over the hazing that went on for the pledges.  And so that led to some painful and unpleasant nights of semi-torture from the guys who had been my friends only weeks before.  This is not a story of physical torture, but one of cringeworthy mental hell.  Each active fraternity member was allotted one assignment that they could hand down to the pledges.  Some were cool and made it something like "play two hours of Madden with me in my dorm room" or "go out to dinner."  Others were less cool with like "do my laundry for a week" or "walk my dog every afternoon."  But one dude created the cringiest situation possible and stuck me and my pedge-brother Ernie right in the thick of it.  This older active was dating a freshman girl who was in my circle of friends.  His assignment to us was to show up at his apartment one evening, where he was cooking a dinner for his girlfriend.  And as he lit candles and served up whatever jenky ass dinner he had prepared, the two of us had to sing (I'm literally cracking up right now while writing this, it was soooo awkward) a song right to the girl as she sat there and waited for her dinner.  IT WAS BRUTAL.  Just me standing in Jamie's living room and singing an a cappella version of "Wonderful Tonight" to Crystal as the spaghetti sauce congealed on her plate.  And when I was done, Ernie fired up Travis Tritt's "Drift Off to Dream."

His hair should have its own Twitter account.  Just three minutes and forty-four seconds of the Ern-Dog slowly singing this song right to Crystal while I stood there and stared at the wall.  This one has 4.2 million streams and was on that same debut album with "Country Club."  I hope that Crystal has heard that song since, and involuntarily shivered before crying out in fear.

Tritt has also been in movies and TV shows, stuff like The Cowboy Way (with Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland!), Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, or Fire Down Below (Steven Seagal!).  He's a staunch Republican and defender of gun rights, which kind of makes sense for his audience.

His second biggest song is a good old kiss off tune, from 1991's It's All About to Change, this is "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" with 61.3 million streams.

Woah, he just used the word "sordid" in a country song.  Has the word "sordid" ever been used before in a country song?  Fine SAT word, Travis.  I bet you broke some redneck brains with that one.  Honestly, a freaking great tune.  A fun thing to do is to go into the YouTube comments for a song like that where the commenters are VERY hot about the fact that this is REAL CONTRY not like the JUNK they play on the RADIO todAY!  Tritt apparently wrote this song the night that he received his divorce papers from his second wife.

I gotta say, I've enjoyed listening to this guy.  It is always curious to me to wonder why this guy flew under the radar a little bit for a non-country fan like myself, while other guys like Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks crossed over into the mainstream in a big way.  I know he nailed a bunch of platinum albums onto his wall, but I just wonder what it is that gets Garth into the upper echelons of pop culture and this guy relegated to playing state fairs.  One article I read said that Nashville was reluctant to embrace him because he didn't wear a cowboy hat and his songs had too much rock in them.  Either way, this is pretty good.  Depending on the schedule, I'd go watch him.