Dierks Bentley moved to Nashville from Phoenix when he was 19 with songs in
his pockets and not much else.
Bentley began making the rounds, trying to find a key to unlock the mysteries of country music stardom. He dug into the soul of the city and the music that gives it life. He hung with the pickers and singers who live and breathe country, folk, and bluegrass — those poor souls who give up everything to write a good country song or love staying up until dawn trading guitar licks and whiskey shots.
After several years of struggling, Bentley signed with a major label and scored a number one radio hit with “What Was I Thinkin’?”
Yeah, he’s cute and has gorgeous girls in his videos, but he has brought a bad boy party element back to country.
Unlike some of his contemporaries, Bentley’s music is actually rooted in the traditional hillbilly, honky-tonk, bad-times-are-going-to-get-worse mentality that drives the pickup truck of country music down a deserted blacktop and into the Dew Drop Inn on the highway intersection at 3 o’clock in the afternoon for a cold one.
Lately, Bentley has been hanging with Cross Canadian Ragweed, a Stillwater, Okla., group proud of opening for Lynyrd Skynyrd and for scoring high on the Billboard magazine country music charts.
Bentley and the Weeds apparently share some common activities, and to further promote them, they joined up on the High Times and Hangovers Tour, bringing their country music into nightclubs that normally book rock bands. They did very well, thank you, both personally and professionally.
Next year, 29-year-old Dierks leaves the bar scene and takes off on George Strait’s Arena Tour, continuing his unexpected climb up the ladder of country music success.
Maybe the secret is in his attitude: He doesn’t aspire to succeed on the business side of the music but is willing to deal with its realities. Or, as he puts it on his Web site biography, “As a singer and songwriter, it’s not only how I make a living but what gives me direction and purpose in life.”
Dierks Bentley swings into Taylorville’s Nashville North at
6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19. Call 217-287-2103 or log onto www.nvnusa.com for ticket
information.
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2004.
