Home
Results for: Brooks %26 Dunn
Musicians (1 of 4 sources) Open/Close data Source
Brooks & Dunn
Country vocal duo

Mixing two elements can sometimes cause an explosive reaction that results in something completely new, something greater than the sum of its parts. When Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn teamed up, two little-known solo artists who struggled for decades were transformed overnight into superstars, becoming country music's top vocal duo. Their debut album, Brand New Man, remained on Billboard's Top Country Albums charts for more than five years. Since their 1991 breakthrough, the duo's standout songwriting and performances have continued to win critical acclaim and every major industry award, as well as an enthusiastic audience, evidenced by record-breaking tours and a nearly unprecedented durability. "There's never been a male pairing that's turned into this kind of sociological phenomenon," Country Music Association director Ed Benson told Entertainment Weekly. "They have an electricity and a camaraderie together that's infectious."

Humble Beginnings
The energetic Kix Brooks—who earned his nickname before he was born—began his musical journey in Shreveport, Lousiana. At six years old, he started playing the ukulele. At age 12 he gave his first performance, during a birthday party for country legend Johnny Horton's daughter, who lived down the street. By the time he began college at Louisiana State University, Brooks was a regular on the club circuit. He recalled a New Orleans joint where flying fists and beer bottles filled the air. "I got a blank pistol," he told People. "When they'd get too wild, I'd pop a cap, and they'd be looking for bullet holes in themselves and running for cover." Dunn added that "it took us about 40 years combined, but we finally got out of those danged bars."

After traveling to Alaska to work on an oil pipeline and to Maine to work in advertising, Brooks moved to Nashville, where a former classmate worked for the publishing company of country singer Charlie Daniels. Brooks became a staff writer at Tree Publishing, where he penned hits for John Conley, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Highway 101, Sawyer Brown, the Oak Ridge Boys, and Ricky Van Shelton. He also pursued a solo career, releasing albums on Avion and Capitol with only minor success.

Meanwhile, Ronnie Dunn grew up performing with his father's band in west Texas. He was later forced to choose between music and the Baptist ministry while at Abilene Christian College, as moonlighting in honky-tonks was not an approved part of the curriculum for psychology and theology students.

Confronted with the choice, Dunn quit school and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, with his parents. After years of playing clubs in Texas and Oklahoma, he won the Marlboro Talent Search contest. His prizes included recording sessions with producers Barry Beckett and Scott Hendricks. It was Hendricks who later brought Dunn to the attention of Arista executive Tim DuBois. Dunn moved to Nashville and signed with Tree Publishing, where Brooks was also on staff.

DuBois noticed similarities in Brooks and Dunn's music, introduced the two over lunch in 1990, and suggested they try writing together. Brooks told People, "Ronnie and I were the most unlikely duo candidates. We had always held onto single egos." When they first paired up, Brooks told David Zimmerman of USA Today, "These songs kept poppin' out," adding that the duo hoped Alan Jackson would include one of their songs in his next project.

A Reluctant Duo
As DuBois recalled to Zimmerman, "The first song they brought me that they'd written together was ‘Brand New Man.’ I knew we had something special there. It was obvious I had to convince them that they were an act. They both wanted solo careers very badly and had pursued it for so long. … I think there was that element of letting go of that dream." Determined to succeed, they finally decided to take their chances together. Dunn told Dana Kennedy of Entertainment Weekly that the duo's success was a result of "sheer blind determination. Psychotic need. There are a lot of people who make it who don't have a thimbleful of talent. They just want it more than anybody else. That's what it takes."

Their debut album, Brand New Man, was released in 1991. The album proved the duo had what it took. In Kennedy's words, "Their appeal stems from the way they mix styles—the music is part lonesome-hearted country, part stomping rock & roll, overlaid with a '70s singer/songwriter sensibility."

Their sophomore effort, 1993's Hard Workin' Man, left no doubt about the duo's star status. Ted Drozdowski wrote in Rolling Stone, "Hard Workin' Man is a smooth-running machine, fueled by Dunn's burr-edged lead vocals, the duo's strong harmonies and choruses built on hooks heavy enough to pierce even the heartiest Saturday night honky-tonker." Zimmerman wrote, "Leave the weepy ballads to Vince Gill and the message songs to Garth Brooks (no relation to Kix); the duo's sole aim is to scar up those hardwood dance floors with the gotta-dance tug of songs like … ‘Hard Workin' Man’ and the career-making ‘Boot Scootin' Boogie,’ the dance-hall classic that even invaded disco clubs."

In 1996 the release of Borderline marked what Ronnie Dunn called "a little bit of a left turn for us," according to imusic.com. "I felt like it was time for us to kind of veer off the most traveled path. It sure doesn't hurt, in today's climate, to step just a little bit over into what the traditionalists might call ‘progressive.’" "We use everyone's input to decide which songs to cut," Brooks told Tamara Saviano of Country Weekly. After the 1994 album Waitin' on Sundown spawned five top ten hits, Brooks & Dunn were superstars.

The duo's 1998 album If You See Her included a remake of the 1966 Roger Miller classic "Husbands and Wives." The song eventually went to number one.

The album's title track, "If You See Him/If You See Her" (sung with Reba McEntire), "was the result of an unprecedented alliance between two superstar acts and their label chiefs, managers, producers and promotion and marketing teams," wrote Billboard's Chet Flippo. "One song became a single for two acts on two different labels, as well as a video. The song also anchors the new album for each act, and the albums themselves are named after the song. A joint tour with McEntire and Brooks & Dunn is powering the whole venture." During that co-headlining tour with McEntire, the two acts took turns going on stage first. At times, the question of who would open in what city was settled by a simple coin toss. "After a month or so," Dunn joked, "the only argument we had was over who'd go on last. We both wanted to be the opening act!"

Collaboration Brought Success
In 1998 Brooks and Dunn were ranked the fourth highest-grossing tour for their joint dates with McEntire, according to Amusement Business magazine, and ninth for the shows they headlined. The duo's performance style garnered them coveted entertainer of the year awards from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association in the 1990s. They are the only duo ever to have achieved this honor. "A dynamo in concert," People noted, "Brooks likes to jump into the audience, while his laid-back foil packs his energies into the vocals." And Zimmerman wrote, "In concert … Dunn is the less flamboyant of the two, but his vocal intensity somehow matches Brooks' manic leaps, duckwalks and near-violent guitar work."

Their contrasting styles seem to be part of the key to the duo's success. "I really don't know why we work so well together," Dunn was quoted in imusic.com. "It must be because we are such opposites, in image and stuff like that. … I think the freedom we give each other has a lot to do with it. We each kind of do our own thing then bring it all together."

In an Arista label biography, Dunn explained that "Kix and I really give each other room to stretch. The two of us are just very different musically, in terms of what we like to hear and write. We accept that. We basically meet in the middle. There's never been a rift, and it keeps things fresh." And Brooks told imusic.com, "I'm not much good at analyzing it. We just do what we do and thank God that a lot of folks are into it. I think the public just sees us for what we are: a couple of buddies making music together that obviously has a fun factor to it." But, he explained further in the Arista biography, "I think it's the fear factor that really keeps us going. … We know this whole big fun thing that we do all revolves around that next hit. That's a wolf that never stops barking at you." "It goes through your mind sometimes how long all this is going to last," Brooks told imusic.com. "That tremendous rush we feel when we hit the stage, or when we lay down final vocal tracks in the studio, is still there. It's something I can't imagine losing."

Remained Country Favorites
And indeed Brooks & Dunn maintained their top-level stardom well into the new decade, long after most other acts with whom they shared the top of the charts in the early 1990s had faded, Reba McEntire being a notable exception. The year after the 1999 Brooks & Dunn album Tight Rope appeared, they failed to win the Country Music Association's vocal duo of the year award, the first time it had gone to anyone other than Brooks & Dunn since 1992.

Instead of settling into the casinos-and-oldies circuit, Brooks and Dunn redoubled their efforts with a new focus on songwriting. The 2001 album Steers and Stripes spawned three number one hits, "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You," "Only in America," and "The Long Goodbye." For their next release, 2003's Red Dirt Road, Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly noted that "they dug even deeper, using autobiography, the musical influences of their teens, and energized roots-rock production."

As could be heard in the Rolling Stones-style chords that introduced that album's hit single "You Can't Take the Honky-Tonk out of the Girl," Brooks & Dunn relied partly on their ability to project a country image while introducing numerous rock guitar elements into their sound. Their releases skillfully alternated between harder-rocking albums and those that kept closer to ballads and country dance rhythms, and their releases of the mid-2000s continued to deliver variety that pleased a wide spectrum of country listeners: Hillbilly Deluxe (2005) gave nods to singers dating as far back as Patsy Cline in "Play Something Country," while the 2007 release Cowboy Town honored a 1970s Texas country-rock fusion pioneer with "The Ballad of Jerry Jeff Walker." Cowboy Town spawned a hit with the reflective "God Must Be Busy," but 2007 marked the first time since 2000 that the duo had failed to capture the Country Music Association's vocal duo of the year honor. Nevertheless, Mikael Wood of Entertainment Weekly praised the album's "muscular riffs and handsome vocal harmonies."

Selected discography
Brand New Man, Arista, 1991.
Hard Workin' Man, Arista, 1993.
Waitin' on Sundown, Arista, 1994.
Borderline, Arista, 1996.
The Greatest Hits Collection, Arista, 1997.
If You See Her, Arista, 1998.
Tight Rope, Arista, 1999.
Steers and Stripes, Arista, 2001.
It Won't Be Christmas Without You, Arista, 2002.
Red Dirt Road, Arista, 2004.
Greatest Hits Collection, Vol. II, Arista, 2004.
Hillbilly Deluxe, Arista, 2005.
Cowboy Town, Arista, 2007.

Sources
Books
McCloud, Barry, et al, Definitive Country: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Country Music and Its Performers, Perigee, 1995.

Periodicals
Billboard, June 27, 1998, p. 36.
Country Weekly, January 5, 1999, p. 14.
Entertainment Weekly, October 21, 1994; July 18, 2003, p. 73; October 12, 2007, p. 73.
People, March 29, 1993, p. 51.
Rolling Stone, May 13, 1993, p. 107.
USA Today, March 10, 1993, p. D1; July 22, 2003, p. D4.

Online
"Brooks & Dunn,",Artist showcase, imusic.com (1999).
"Brooks & Dunn," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (March 3, 2008).

Other
Additional information for this essay was provided by Arista/Nashville publicity materials, 1998.

logo Contemporary Musicians © 1989-2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Pop Artists Open/Close data Source
Wikipedia Open/Close data Source
Mentioned In Open/Close data Source