Lonestar

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LONESTAR

Formed: 1992, Nashville, Tennessee

Members: Michael Britt, guitar (born Fort Worth, Texas, 15 June 1966); Richie McDonald, vocals (born Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1962); Keech Rainwater, drums (born Plano, Texas, 24 January 1963); Dean Sams, keyboards (born Garland, Texas, 3 August 1966). Former member: John Rich (born Amarillo, Texas, 7 January 1974).

Genre: Country, Pop

Best-selling album since 1990: Lonely Grill (1999)

Hit songs since 1990: "No News," "Amazed," "I'm Already There"

Lonestar emerged in the mid-1990s as a traditional-sounding country band with pop leanings, achieving renown through adept musicianship and a strong pair of lead vocalists. As the decade progressed, the group gradually incorporated a harder rock edge into its work, an approach resulting in the 1999 smash crossover hit, "Amazed." By 2001 Lonestar's country sound had largely vanished, although classic country instruments such as pedal steel guitar still appeared on a few songs. Never known for grittiness in sound or message, Lonestar's later work is largely notable for its unabashed sentimentality.

Although all five original band members hailed from Texas, Lonestar formed in the country music capital of Nashville, Tennessee, in 1992. Most of the members carried years of experience performing with previous bands; however, lead singer John Rich, an eighteen-year-old blue-grass enthusiast who had forsaken college to pursue a career in music, was a novice. Lonestar became known for its unyielding professionalism as it toured the country in a Jeep Cherokee, promoting a self-produced live CD and performing more than 500 shows from 1993 to 1994. In 1995 the hard work paid off when the band secured a recording contract with BNA Records, a division of music conglomerate BMG. Lonestar's self-titled debut album appeared that year and featured the gentle hit, "Tequila Talkin'," a charming, midtempo song that mines time-proven themes of love and regret while featuring a lyrical hook built upon tequila's reputation for promoting verbal indiscretion. The album's most enduring hit, however, is the sharp, danceable, "No News," a guitar-driven shuffle recalling the work of modern blues artist Robert Cray.

Crazy Nights (1997), Lonestar's second album, largely sanded down the few rough edges the first album had possessed. The result is a pleasant release that relies on easy melodies with little instrumental or lyrical surprise. After Crazy Nights the band lost Rich, who departed to pursue a solo career. Beginning with Lonely Grill (1999), member Richie McDonald assumed lead duties on all vocals, ushering the band into its most commercially successful phase. By now Lonestar's sound resembled that of 1980s "arena-rock" bands such as Journey or REO Speedwagon, complete with blaring electric guitars and heavy, thudding drums. The group's giant hit single, "Amazed," which climbed to the number one position on both the country and pop charts, recalls the loud power ballads of the 1980s, with devotional lyrics and a dramatic modulation before the final choral repetition. The fleeting presence of a pedal steel guitar sounds like an afterthought, added in acknowledgment of the group's country origins. In 2001 Lonestar released I'm Already There, similar in spirit to the rock sound of "Amazed." Picking up on a salient trend in country of the early 2000s, the hit title track radiates feel-good sentiment. After a little boy, speaking on long-distance telephone, asks his father when he will come home from a business trip, the father replies, "I'm already there / Take a look around / I'm the sunshine in your hair."

Beginning as a raucous, if clean-cut, country outfit in the 1990s, Lonestar slowly achieved stardom by adopting a blunter-edged rock sound. In the process the group became a polished example of country's late 1990s assimilation into the pop mainstream, bringing country music a new level of recognition.