Certain artists just seem to have an innate sense of what it takes to please an audience. Clay Walker is one of those artists. Whether on stage or in the recording studio, Walker never gives less than a hundred percent, and it's that kind of dedicated work ethic combined with God-given talent that have made him one of the most successful country acts of the past decade. He first topped the Billboard country singles chart in 1993 with "What's It to You" and followed with his second consecutive No. 1 hit, "Live Until I Die." Since then he's placed 31 titles on Billboard's singles chart including such additional chart toppers as "Dreaming with my Eyes Open," "If I Could Make Living," "This Woman and This Man," and "Rumor Has It." (The latter two songs each spent two weeks at the summit.) He's enjoyed his share of success at the cash registers and has consistently been one of the busiest artists on the road. He's scored four platinum-selling albums, signifying sales of a million units, and two gold albums, discs that sold over 500,000 units. However, that doesn't mean Walker has any intention of resting on his laurels. The talented Texan has teamed with acclaimed producer Keith Stegall to record his first album for Curb Records. "He's a great producer," Walker says. "I've always been a fan, but for whatever reason just have not had the opportunity to work with him. He's one of the few producers that really allow the lyric of the song to carry the song more than trying to put huge production around it. He gives the lyric room to breathe in a song and I think that's real important." With that respect came a level of trust and comfort during the recording process. "I had no anxiety at all working with him," says Walker, "because I didn't feel like there was anything I could add to the record as far as suggestions that would be better than what Keith already had--and that's a real comfort to me." One of Walker's favorite tracks on the new album is a song titled "Fall." He says Stegall is rather low key in the studio, not very animated at all, but he knew after he'd recorded the song, it met Stegall's approval. "Keith stood up and high-fived the engineer when we got done with the vocal and I thought, that's the first that I've ever seen that, maybe he was just glad that I got all the lyrics right," Walker says with a laugh. "It was refreshing to know there wasn't a lot of wasted time in the studio with Keith. He knows what he wants and he communicates that with the musicians really well." Walker says his approach to the new album was simple: "The biggest thing that I wanted to do was to just get songs on the radio and make music that people love. I wanted to continue the style they've known me for and not change things too much because the music we've made in the past is good music. Mainly I was looking for stronger lyrics. I think you try to do that with every record, and the more you record, the better you get at being able to pick hit songs." Walker admits he had plenty of help looking for material for his eighth album, but the process still took longer than he'd anticipated. "There were people involved in the song search that I really, really respect. Keith Stegall and Doug Johnson are both guys I respect for finding great songs. They know what No. 1 hits are. So that took a lot of pressure off, but at the same time, it took us a year to find all the songs for this CD, which was a lot longer than I'm used to. I'm used to finding the songs in two or three months, but the song search stretched out for nearly a year. They were both saying: 'You know what? We aren't coming until this album is a masterpiece.' I think that that's a wonderful approach. Now that it's finally here, I'm excited to get it all out." After recording six albums for Giant Records, and one on RCA, Walker recently signed with Curb Records. "I feel like Curb is a great place to be because they are all about artistry. They have the feel of a small record label with only a handful of artists, but they have the power of an RCA or BMG or Sony," he says. "So with that kind of power and that kind of an approach, I see why they are successful and I hope to be a part of that success for them." Walker has been playing some of new music on the road and getting enthusiastic response. "I love the country sound of this record," he says. "Every one of these songs has a cool flavor to it and none of them sound alike. That's what I love. I guess the only common thing to the whole thing is the fact that they are country." The cream of the Music Row songwriting community contributed their talents to Walker's project, among them Rivers Rutherford, Doug Johnson, Brett James and Kim Williams. Walker also contributes two cuts himself. "I wrote one in San Diego called 'I Hate Nights Like This,'" he recalls. "It describes a beautiful starry night by the ocean and it's really a true story. The lyrics are 'I hate nights like this, it makes me want to be in love.

• published: 21 Oct 2011
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