POP PSYCHOLOGY
JACK Ingram’s career over the past dozen years has been a lot like his old pick-up truck – a slow ride that could make it
to just about anywhere in Texas, but not much farther.
But over the last few months, all that changed for this handsome, shaggy-haired twanger. His “This Is It” album rocketed
him out of the roadhouse circuit and onto national tours with acts as diverse as Sheryl Crow and country’s big dog daddy
Toby Keith.
“I don’t think I’ve changed as much as the climate for country has,” the 36-year-old Texan said from Nashville, where he
was taping a TV concert special. The climate Ingram’s referring to is where Jersey-boys like Bon Jovi can score on both
coasts and the fly-over states with a just released countrified collection “Lost Highway.”
Ingram insists, “I am a country artist,” but he adds “the lines between country, pop and rock are kind of blurry these
days.”
Cementing his point, take a look at Ingram’s 2002 record “Electric.” That disc earned Ingram national acclaim in the
press, as well as the praise of country masters including Waylon Jennings, who called him “an incredible talent.”
Still, the record tanked in stores and two months after its release Sony dropped Ingram – as did his management company.
Ingram, who has a psychology degree from Southern Methodist University, admits, “that was a discouraging time.” While the
thought of quitting music never entered his mind, he says he did give his situation a long hard think.
“I realized I couldn’t work harder than I was already working,” he says. “And making better records wasn’t going to get
better results – I already made a good record with bad results.”
Psych 101 has come in handy.
“It wasn’t that they didn’t like me or thought I was a disposable artist. The guys at Sony appreciated what I was doing,
they just didn’t know what to do with me. They were scared that they were going to lose their jobs because at that time
radio didn’t sound like the way my record sounded.”
Times changes, and Ingram has gone from being a cult act to a headliner. Nowadays he does sound like the radio, yet the
man and his music essentially remain the same: “I still put on my pants and go to work, it’s just that more people know
who I am now.”
To sample Ingram’s radio-ready country/rock check him out at his one-night stand tonight (July 26) at 8 p.m. at BB Kings
Blues Club, 237 West 42nd Street.
