Garth Brooks returns to the studio with original producer

Brooks reunites with most of his original team for new studio recordings

Garth Brooks is back in the studio recording new music with his longtime studio band. This evening (Mon, Oct 21st), the country superstar was live from his Allentown studio on Music Row for his weekly Facebook live series, Inside Studio G. Brooks says pianist Bobby Wood, whose licks are heard in the opening of “The Dance,” among others, took a leave of absence while his late wife was sick.

“We hadn’t had Bobby Wood get to play on a session in a long time because his wife Janice was struggling so much. And Bobby, being the sweetest man on the planet, took care of her. And he never could be away from her for more than an hour or two hours. So he’d come in as overdubs which he was always a primary player who would come in on the tracking days,” Brooks shares while sitting in front of the audio board in Studio B.

“Unfortunately, Miss Janice passed away. And we were all very honored to be at her funeral in her celebration of life. And so I hugged Bobby and what a wild weekend that had to be for him emotionally. Because Janice’s services, let’s say, were on a Friday and he went into the Nashville [Musician’s] Hall of Fame on Saturday. And so we got to see Bobby Wood’s character at its finest, which remember this, character is not created in crisis, it is always revealed. And the character I saw in that man and his boys were fabulous. That weekend they represented their family name well.”

Brooks says it was then that he realized he needed to book a recording session so Wood could return to playing piano. However, it’s another reunion of sorts as original producer Allen Reynolds (who sold Brooks the studio, then named Jack’s Tracks, in 2010 with Brooks renaming it Allentown in Reynolds’ honor in 2012 for his 50th anniversary as a producer) and engineer Mark Miller are back as well.

“Now, here’s the crazy thing. We did it for [Bobby]. We’re all having a great time. It’s fabulous. So we’re going to be here for a while. Then here’s the big news that you can spread out. The producer of the session is Allen Reynolds. Allen Reynolds hadn’t sat at the producer’s wheel for us for 20 years. Engineer, Mark Miller. Mark hasn’t been… So it’s great. It’s really, really nice. So just loving these guys, and having fun. And I’m amazed because it’s the same players we’ve used and all the stuff, but the first record sounded like an Allen Reynolds record. It’s like, how does that happen, right? They’re just magic with those guys. They love being back in that room, and this house loves them. And it’s really cool.”

Brooks says one of the songs they’re recording is something he teased about 18 months ago.

“About a year and a half ago, I played around with a thing called ‘Wanted Man,’ he says. “And I got such a good response from you guys on that thing that that was the first thing that we just cut today. So it’s cool. Not saying that these are ever going to see the light of day. This was all about Bobby Wood getting to come back and play again. But can I just tell you Bobby Wood played his ass off on the first cut, so that’s the first one. Hopefully, we’ll get five or six this week. We’re in no hurry, and right now everybody’s just loving on each other and laughing and feeling good.”

Brooks also assured the fourth volume of his Anthology book/CD series will be available on Black Friday, November 29th.

“[W]e all have stuff that surprises us because when you have 500 voices telling the story, there’s going to be things that you never knew,” Brooks says of the series. “[Volume] four is just the 14 years at home [raising the kids during retirement from 2000-2014]. So here come the voices you have never heard: their friends and family we raised our kids with. And then it will return to the new writers in town after being gone for 14 years. Now you’re going to hear their story of what it’s like. So let’s take a ‘People Loving People.’ There’s a quote from one of the songwriters when they wrote it, ‘So the only person I think would sing this is Garth Brooks and he’s retired.’ That weird. And then you come back and pick it yourself, so it’s pretty cool.”

Brooks says he hopes to release the fifth Anthology volume by Christmas. Details about both are expected soon.

Brooks, who opened his Friends in Low Places Honky-Tonk & Bar last November on Nashville’s Lower Broadway, says his organization is helping Vanderbilt after the Southeast Conference fined the team $100,000 for allowing fans to storm the football field earlier this month during an upset win against Arkansas. Fans ripped off one of the goalposts and carried it several miles downtown where they tossed it into the Cumberland River.

“So we’re talking about Vanderbilt tearing down the goalpost and going by Friends [in Low Places]. Okay, so they got fined so badly that they had to cut the goalpost up in pieces and sell the pieces to pay off the fine,” Brooks says. “What they didn’t sell was the pad that was on it. We bought it. So we had to because you’re raising money for it. We had to. It’s going to be in the Sevens Club up there [on the third level]. We’ll see how many we can get the guys to sign it. But what I love about that whole thing is that it shocked the world. That whole saying was so cool because I love the underdog.”

Brooks is winding down his Inside Studio G series. He confirms six more episodes are left before it wraps sometime before Christmas.

Brooks will return to his Garth Brooks/Plus One Las Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace from December 5th through 22nd before wrapping it in March 2025.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn