Bill Gentry is a lot of things that don’t seem, at first
glance, to fit together. A businessman. A club owner. A preacher’s kid.
A former politician. And an artist who will not be denied.
If those descriptions sound like an odd assortment of current and
past lives – well, they are. But they’re also accurate fragments of
Gentry, a complicated, driven soul whose personal contrasts are nicely
summed up in Baptized In Temptation. The 10-track debut album
captures both the rowdy party boy and the thoughtful mate, the country
stylist and the blues-rocker.
Produced by Grammy-winner Chad Carlson (Taylor Swift,
Trisha Yearwood,
Chris Isaak, Sugarland, Cold Mountain soundtrack, Walk the Line
soundtrack, etc), the project represents the first studio music that
successfully captures the sonic thump of Gentry’s pulsing, high-energy
country shows. Those concerts have already seen him play to more than 1
million ticket holders and become something of a Georgia mini-legend, a
romp-‘em, stomp-‘em, take-no-prisoners performer who got that way
through relentless hard work and study of his concert craft.
“I’m not some getting-drunk kind of party animal,” Gentry insists.
But he might appear that way to many of the fans who’ve locked into
his let-it-loose stage persona, just one piece of the puzzle represented
in his album. “Between Muscle Shoals And Macon,” the collection’s
opening number, pays homage to many of the diverse sounds that form the
backbone to Gentry’s musical character: mainstream country, Aretha
Franklin-brand gospel, Otis Redding-style soul.
“Hell And Half Of Georgia” builds a dedicated pursuit of romance
around the music of the Allman Brothers Band; “Why Can’t You Forgive Me”
draws on Gentry’s ever-present humor to form a personal plea from public
foibles of Bill Clinton, George Jones, Pee Wee Herman and the
Dixie
Chicks; and “The Letter” -- the album’s first single -- demonstrates the depth
of thought and self-examination that have made Gentry a success at
nearly every pursuit he’s attempted in a highly ambitious life.
...
The album as a whole captures the energy of a Bill Gentry concert,
which inevitably finds the audience pumping fists and singing along in
loud voices. It’s a reminder that all those different parts of his
personality -- the saint and sinner, the artist and businessman --
make him extremely connected to the lives of the fans he’s trying to
reach. That connection, and the way it’s achieved, is everything.
“It’s not about where you play, who you open for, or how much you get
paid to do it,” Gentry surmises. “It’s all about the music.”
