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From Ingram's "Lips" to the country spotlight
05/04/2007 8:48 PM, Reuters
Phyllis Stark
"I'm just an old chunk of coal/but
I'm going to be a diamond someday," Jack Ingram sings in an
expansive rehearsal studio on New York's West Side.
The song, in many ways, is a perfect fit for the
36-year-old musician. "Old Chunk of Coal" was penned by Billy Joe Shaver, who helped shape the Texas country scene where
Ingram cut his teeth.
But a different cover has helped propel Ingram further into
the spotlight -- his take on Hinder's "Lips of an Angel."
Most of all, though, "Old Chunk of Coal" fits because these
really are, finally, Ingram's diamond days.
After a dozen years, nine albums and the jump from indie
label to major to indie, Ingram is celebrating commercial
success on the airwaves, on the charts, at concerts and with
sales.
"I think what's been most important is that I'm on the
right label," Ingram says. After releasing a pair of albums
independently in the mid-'90s, he signed with Warner Bros.,
then shuffled to Sony's Lucky Dog imprint. In 2006, he found
his label home in Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Records.
"I wasn't anybody's real priority before, and part of that
is because I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't understand at
the time that I wanted to be on the radio."
And on the radio he is. So far, four cuts from Ingram's
recently released (and appropriately titled) "This Is It" have
made their way onto Billboard's Hot Country Songs tally:
"Wherever You Are" crowned the chart last year; tongue-in-cheek
"Love You" reached No. 12; "Lips of an Angel" peaked at No. 16
(and at No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100); and current single
"Measure of a Man" is No. 43. The album bowed at No. 4 on the
Billboard 200 the week of April 14 and has sold 63,000 copies
in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Helping to increase sales and spins is country radio's
still-growing affinity for country with a rock edge, which
exploded with the popularity of superstar artists like Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley and Brad Paisley -- the last of whom
Ingram recently hit the road with. The tour, which kicked off
April 26, is slated to run through August 23.
"It's because I've got songs like 'Lips of an Angel' that
my record sold more in its first week than the total sales of
the record before it," Ingram says. "It's rock songs with twang
and slide, or whatever. It's whatever this trend is that's
allowed me to walk through the door at last."
Reuters/Billboard
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