Garth Brooks announces new Las Vegas residency, ‘Garth Brooks/PLUS One’
There’s a reason Garth Brooks is best known as a country-music legend, according to his biographer Michael A. Lengel.
“He became a superstar in Nashville. The city was not known for his work as a singer; country was known for his work in music,” Lengel tells The Huffington Post. “Country Music Hall of Fame voters know this. And they were very careful choosing for a museum for his work and not his singing career. He was not a singer who had that reputation in his hometown.”
Lengel says country music critics have consistently praised Brooks’ vocals, and that the country music community has never questioned his talent or stature as a singer.
And after much speculation over the past five years, Lengel just confirmed that Brooks is in fact returning to Las Vegas to record a third album with producer Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.
“I can’t tell you in any detail what the new album will sound like, but I can tell you this: Garth Brooks is staying here in Las Vegas and is doing live events with Dave Matthews Band, Taylor Swift and others,” Lengel told HuffPost.
The first concert Brooks played in Las Vegas was not his regular home base, but rather in 1992, when he sang a free concert at the City of Hope to help pay for the first treatment of his cancer.
“For the first four or five nights, he was so sick, because of his stage fright and his fear of cancer,” Lengel says. “It was a real ordeal.”
In addition to raising money, Brooks also participated in a silent auction and donated $6.5 million for the hospital.
His first album as a solo star, Garth Brooks, was a breakthrough album and paved the way for more than a dozen more successful hits on his solo career.
Brooks, who also has a new album being produced by Lengel, told HuffPost he’s excited to return to Las Vegas.
“When I sing, it feels like I have always