Takamine

On November 20, Garth Brooks will release his long-awaited new studio album Fun. The longtime friend of Takamine recently announced the record’s release date, along with a new concert album, Triple Live Deluxe, hitting the same day.

Originally slated for a spring 2020 release, the 14-track studio album was waylaid by the pandemic along with the launch of the three-year Garth Brooks Stadium Tour. But anyone halfway familiar with the big guy knows that his version of laying low would be anyone else’s banner year.

Case in point: two weeks ago, some of the biggest names in music including Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Alicia Keys, Lizzo, John Legend, Demi Lovato, BTS and host Kelly Clarkson gathered for the 2020 Billboard Music Awards. The occasion was marked to award Garth the Billboard Icon Award. Performing an eight-song medley of hits backed by audio and video of past concert audiences, Garth’s legendary performance energy at the Dolby Theater made us completely forget there was no live audience in attendance.

Unquestionably destined for the Billboard honor, Garth is the first and only artist in history to earn eight RIAA Diamond-certified albums (10 million albums sold for each record); he is also the #1-selling solo artist in the history of the United States, with a total of 156 million albums sold. The 19-time Billboard Music Awards winner has earned nine #1 albums on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, the most of any country artist ever. He has 17 #1 hits under his belt. He is also the first artist to ever appear on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in the '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s and '20s.

But it didn’t seem that long ago that the new-to-Nashville aspiring country artist was attending singer-songwriter events at Music City night spots and noticing a certain brand of acoustic guitar sounding particularly good. Garth followed local pro’s advice, paid a visit to Larry Garris at Corner Music in Nashville, and purchased his first Takamine. To this day, Corner Music remains Nashville’s premier Takamine destination, where the offering includes a certain signature model bearing the name of that upstart from Oklahoma.

The GB7C, developed as per Garth’s specs in 1996, introduced the now familiar dreadnought cutaway-shaped sound hole. It was otherwise an offshoot of his then-mainstay EN15C (current P3DC from Takamine’s popular Pro Series 3). The Garth Brooks Signature Series model has since become as closely associated with its namesake as any guitar, with any artist, ever. Lately, Brooks’ custom “Circle G” model, with the exact same specs as the GB7C except for the honeycombed sound-hole logo (currently available only to Brooks) has also been working a lot.

So stay tuned for November 20 release of Fun and Triple Live Deluxe  and otherwise keep track of Garth and Trisha at garthbrooks.com.