Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks and Tracy Lawrence Were Once in a Wedding Together
Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks and Tracy Lawrence once made an all-star wedding party in the early '90s. During the newest episode of Apple Music's Beyond the Influence Radio With Tim McGraw on Wednesday (March 3), McGraw recalls how all three stars served as bridesmen for a mutual friend early in their respective careers.
The bride's name was Tammy Rose, and McGraw describes her as someone "who sort of took new artists under their wing when they first moved to town." He, Brooks and Lawrence were all friends of hers, and while McGraw and Lawrence were also friends directly, McGraw and Brooks didn't know each other.
"And so, when she got married, she asked Garth, me and Tracy Lawrence to be her bridesmaids," McGraw says. At the time, he explains, he had recently signed his first record deal, with Curb Records, but "hadn't had a hit;" however, both Brooks and Lawrence's careers were hot.
McGraw doesn't specify, but these clues mean this wedding could have taken place as early as late 1990 (the year he signed with Curb) or as late as 1994 (the year he scored his first Top 10 singles). Brooks' debut single, from 1989, was a Top 10, and his star quickly rose from there; Lawrence, meanwhile, scored his first No. 1 in 1991, and every single he released until "The Coast in Clear" in 1997 went Top 10.
"So we're all bridesmaids at this wedding for Tammy, and I'm standing there. I'm sort of in awe ... You know, Tracy and I had been friends for a while and he had his success, but Garth was there and I'm sort of in awe of Garth being there," McGraw continues. He did, however, eventually get up the courage to talk to Brooks and offer his gratitude for what he'd been doing for the genre.
"I went up to Garth and I said, 'You know, I just want to thank you Garth, because you knocked the door down for all the things that I wanted to do as a country singer. I wanted to come to town and record songs that had a broader melody or broader appeal, and I wanted to do shows that were like the rock shows that I saw growing up. That's the kind of thing that I wanted to do,'" McGraw shares.
"And he said something really profound to me, and it stuck with me to this day," he adds of Brooks. "He goes, 'Look, we all moved to town for that reason. I just got here first.'"
"And I thought that that was really sweet of him to say that, but really, really perceptive of him to say that, too, as well, because we were all thinking those sorts of things," McGraw says. "We all grew up in that environment: seeing, watching, hearing all these different influences and wanting to include them in the genre of music that we chose to make."
Now ... how do we get a photo of that wedding party?!
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