‘Garth Brooks: The Road I’m On’ Brings The Feels With Big-Hearted Video Memoir Of Country Icon (2024)

Everything about Garth Brooks is big. Big songs. Big emotions. Big sales. Big show. As big as NASCAR. OK, maybe not that big but definitely bigger than Major League Soccer. As big as the wide open range in his home state of Oklahoma and maybe even Texas. He of the omnipresent headset mic, with more two-toned striped tops than a ska band. There’s not a lot that’s subtle about Garth Brooks. Except his music. It can simmer with feeling just as easily as it swings for the fences and his vocals are as nuanced and emotive as anyone in country music’s illustrious history.

The 2-part biodoc Garth Brooks: The Road I’m On tells his story as he sees it but with plenty of input from his loved ones, including both wives, one of whom is fellow country superstar Trisha Yearwood. Beefy and barrel chested, Garth is…intense. At times he reminds me of such other exaggerated middle-aged alpha males as Alex Jones, minus the far-right politics and conspiracy theories, and in his more contemplative moments Joe Rogan. He cries. A lot. He cries talking about his Dad. He cries talking about his Mom. More than once. He cries talking about his kids. He cries talking about playing Central Park to a million people. He cries talking about the concession stand girl who was crying so he brought her up on stage and then she cried some more and then he starts crying at the memory of it all. You know, the big guys, they got big feels.

Brooks grew up in Yukon, OK, in his words, “The land of common sense.” He fought for attention as the youngest of 6 kids in a blended family. According to his siblings, he usually got it. His mother was a dreamer who gave up her career as a country singer for motherhood, a sacrifice he’ll never forget. His dad was an old school man’s man who installed in him a sense of hard work, sincerity and focus. Brooks played team sports and attended Oklahoma State University on a partial javelin scholarship.

Country singer George Strait inspired Brooks to pursue a life in country music but he had big ears and was also a fan of 1970s singer-songwriters and classic rock. Playing around Stillwater, OK, Brooks covered Billy Joel and Elton John alongside his own material and country hits of the day. As he explains, “the greatest entertainers, the greatest of all time are those lucky f***ers that get to do what they want to do and it’s exactly what that crowd came to see.” Early performance tapes show his voice already fully developed.

Like many a country singer before him, Brooks made his way to Nashville and found that all that glitters is not gold. He and first wife Sandy Mahl struggled financially. According to Brooks, “seven visits to seven labels,” resulted in “seven ‘No’s.” After seeing him live, one of the people who had passed on him decided they’d missed something. He was signed in 1988 and released his first album in April 1989. “Now the war was about to begin,” he says with characteristic melodrama.

Brooks estimates he played over 300 shows his first year on the road. While his record sales were initially driven by ballads, his live show featured theatrics on par with the arena rockers of his youth. It would become an essential part of his allure. His popularity soon eclipsed country and crossed into the mainstream, where he battled for chart space with the likes of Nirvana, Metallica and Michael Jackson. “He just reinvented the wheel,” says Billboard magazine’s Melinda Newman.

As we know from every single music documentary ever made, fame and fortune come at a price. Brooks and Mahl’s marriage was already on the rocks but when he realized his three young daughters were growing up without him, he decided it was time for a change. After a decade as one of the biggest artists in the world, Brooks announced his retirement in 2000. He and the family, ex-wife included, moved back to Oklahoma, where Brooks and Mahl shared custody on alternate days for the next 14 years.

In 2005, Brooks married country singer Trisha Yearwood, who he had met when they were both unknowns singing songwriter demos. After his daughters went off to college, Yearwood encouraged him to tour again. Brooks says he worried no one would show up after announcing his comeback tour in 2014. It would go on to be the highest grossing country tour of all time.

Garth Brooks is an all or nothing proposal. You’re either in or out. You love him, or you don’t. Likewise, The Road I’m On is either a narcissistic one man show or a moving video memoir of a man who cares about his family as much as his career and cares about both of them a heck of a lot (if it’s not obvious, my opinion is the latter). Sometimes his “awww shucks” modesty is a bit hard to take, like, dude, you sold over 170 million records and you’re really scared people aren’t going to come to your show? Still, his emotional extremism seems sincere and that heart on sleeve sentimentality is an essential part of who he is and why people love him. As he describes the years on the road, the endless cycle of shows, autograph sessions and late night drives, he says with no regret, “We were the luckiest guys on the planet.”

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter:@BHSmithNYC.