Artist description It's amazing how inspiring rejection can be. Singer-songwriter John Rich was "wandering in the wilderness," as he puts it, in search of a style, a sound and a record-label career. Every door had been slammed in his face. Raised on gospel, trained in bluegrass and a veteran of the country-pop music of the '90s, Rich had decided to get back in touch with his songwriting. He spent his days polishing his craft and his nights in the clubs of Nashville. That's where he found Big Kenny. "We made an appointment to write together -- and I blew it off, then he blew off the next time. We went back and forth until I thought he was goofy and he thought I was a jerk. Yet when we finally sat down to write together, something started happening. Right away, we wrote 'I Pray For You.'" That stirring, rhythmic number with its ringing guitar signature and pleading lyric is the debut John Rich single and lead-off track of his stunning BNA Records collection Underneath the Same Moon. With various collaborators John Rich and Big Kenny are also the writing team behind the haunting, Celtic-flavored "Old Blue Mountain;" the stately, inspirational "I Love You Like That;" the throbbing, propulsive "Someday" and the album's "message" song "Something To Believe In." Also joining John on his debut album is a stellar array of special guests Underneath the Same Moon features harmony vocals on "Old Blue Mountain" by Rich's labelmate Sara Evans. Delbert McClinton is a guest on the rocking "She Brings the Lightning Down." Tom Petty sideman Benmont Tench mans the piano and B-3 organ on the disc. Former New Grass Revival member Pat Flynn and Americana record maker Darrell Scott provide acoustic guitar support. Gospel legends The Fairfield Four join Rich on the a cappella tour de force "New Jerusalem." But the most significant participant is Rich's coproducer Sharon Vaughn. She provides vocal harmonies throughout and cowrote with him on the striking, big-chorus standout "Steel Bridges;" the high-tenor showcase "Love Won't Listen" and the ballad "Underneath the Same Moon." Vaughn is famed in Nashville for penning such classics as "Til a Tear Becomes a Rose" (Keith Whitley & Lorrie Morgan), "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" (Willie Nelson), "I'm Not That Lonely Yet" (Reba McEntire), "Powerful Thing" (Trisha Yearwood), "Out of My Bones" (Randy Travis), "Y'All Come Back Saloon" (The Oak Ridge Boys) and "Lonely Too Long" (Patty Loveless). "Sharon has such a vibe about her," Rich comments. "People just want to be around her. I started hanging out with her a lot. When I couldn't get a recording deal I would call her and say, "What should I do?" She would give me really good advice. When I started writing these songs with Kenny I played some of them for her out at her house. She said, "Those are really cool." "I asked her what producer I should play this stuff for who might help me get a deal. She suggested several. Out of nowhere I said, "You should do it." She said, "Me? Are you serious?" I said, "It makes sense. If eight out of 10 people that would be buying a record of mine are gonna be women, why not have a woman, like you, in the studio?" RCA/BNA chief Joe Galante had already turned John Rich down. But he was intrigued by this suggestion. He gave the pair a budget and complete creative freedom. When Galante heard the results, John Rich had a record contract and, now, one of the freshest sounding country albums of the new millennium.

Music Style Country

Artist History The new BNA star was born in rural Tennessee in 1974. The family moved to Texas when he was two. Encouraged by his preacher father Jim, John Rich began playing guitar at age seven, started collecting bluegrass records at age nine (the first was a Ralph Stanley LP), saw his first country concert at age 12 (Randy Travis) and began writing songs at age 15Jim and Judy Rich moved their children John, Jamie, Joy and James Isaac back to Tennessee when John was 15. The boy wasn't happy about relocating and plunged further into his music for comfort and solace. During his senior year in high school he auditioned to become an entertainer in the Opryland theme park. He portrayed the legendary Roy Acuff in the park's "Country Music USA" show. Also in the cast were future record makers Chely Wright, James Bonamy, Ken Mellons and Georgia Middleman. So was keyboardist Dean Sams, who invited John Rich to join his band Texassee. "I said, 'I've never been in a band.'" I'd never even been in a club -- my dad would have cut my feet off. I'd snuck into The Broken Spoke two or three times for the talent contests, back when Daryle Singletary and Tracy Lawrence were in them. But no way did I know about playing bars. "I had full paid scholarships to several colleges, but I couldn't think of any career other than music. Everything else I came up with sounded boring. Dean said, 'Hey man, I've got us booked for the whole next year -- we can play 200 gigs if you want to.' My parents got divorced when I was 17. I didn't feel like going to college. Everything hit the fan at once. I was really zeroing in on music; so one thing led to another.""That was the first band I was in. I was 18 -- all the other guys were about 10 years older. And they were vets. They'd been out playing in bars forever. There was a lot of stuff I had no clue aboutThe group did massive amounts of road work in 1993-94, then signed to BNA Records as Lonestar. Rich contributed seven songs to the first two Lonestar CDs, including the second album's title tune "Crazy Nights" and the hit singles "Come Cryin' To Me" and "Say When." But as he evolved as a songwriter it became clear that his tunes weren't headed in the same direction as the band. By mutual agreement he left Lonestar on January 6, 1997. "It was a weird deal. Lonestar was my whole life. I was, 'John-Rich-of-Lonestar' -- it became like part of your name after awhile. We went through so much crazy stuff together out on the road. All of a sudden, it's gone. It's like a death, in a way." "When you come out of a popular band and you go into the abyss of Nashville, just like anybody else, your emotions go like a roller coaster. I went to every label I could go to. I did everything I could do. And nothing happened. It was almost two years before I got a new deal.""Once I realized that I couldn't force somebody to give me a record deal, I just chilled out and quit worrying about it. I totally disappeared. I wanted to just go away and come back clean. I didn't really know what I was gonna do musically. My whole focus became writing songs. I knew that was what I was supposed to do. That's what kept me sane." For a year and a half, songs poured out of him by the dozens. Ten of the 11 songs on Underneath the Same Moon are John Rich originals. The 11th is his version of Bryan Adams's Hope Floats soundtrack song "When You Love Someone," which was cowritten by Nashville's Gretchen Peters. All of the performances are underscored by the innovative production touches of Rich and Vaughn. "We did not record this album in the normal way," he observes. "There is only one guitar solo on it. Everything else is pedal steel. It's such an emotional instrument, like a human voice. And the players are all different, not the same cast that you hear on every other Nashville record. I used an engineer who had never done a major album. We tried different sounds, different approaches. We didn't write anything down. Sharon and I would sing the cello parts to the string players." "But in the end, it's not the production and it's not the artist. In country music, it all really starts with the song. And that's what I hope people will like about this.""You have to follow your music heart. This business isn't for the weak stomachs. It's for the possessed -- you have no other option but to do this. If you have to climb a brick wall, run through a mine field and swim a river to get there, you do it. Because you really believe that this is what you are supposed to be doing. "I'm not worried about the state of country music -- I think it has always been the most quality music there is. Even as a teenager, my idols were Johnny Horton, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Roger Miller and Johnny Cash. My ultimate goal in this business is to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Someday I want to be 65 years old standing on that Opry stage with everybody going, 'Oh gawd, John Rich is here again, singing his hit.' I want to be one of those guys."

Press Reviews Katie Ann Darnell wrote the song "Rescue Me" John Rich recorded the song and made her dreams come true.Katie wrote the song "Rescue Me" during a low period emotionally in which a teacher she felt was a true friend had made her feel really bad. She went to work with her mother and she started getting these words and she said, "they poured out on the paper like a glass of water. The melody fell with them." She wrote this song in about 20 minutes. She considers this song and poems, "gifts from God." Katie says many things have been taken away from her through cancer, but she has received may blessings to replace them.

Location Nashville, Tn - USA

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