Trace Adkins

Trace Adkins was pondering a move to good friend Toby Keith's record label when Adkins heard the words every singer wants to hear.
Adkins offered to would fly to Keith's house in Oklahoma to play him what was to become "Cowboy's Back In Town, when Keith told him, "I don't need to hear what you do."

"Right there he basically said, 'I know who you are. I know what you do. You don't need to change anything for me,'" Adkins recalled.

Adkins signed on as Show Dog-Universal Music's first new recruit and eight months later, the big man's latest album is the label's first major release. "Cowboy's Back in Town," released this week, is a mostly lighthearted romp that includes just one ballad. The man with one of country's most distinctive voices said he was aiming for the same kind of energy generated by his live show.

In a way, the album represents Adkins' response to the new digital era when record sales are more a means to an end than the ultimate goal. Few artists can expect to sell millions of records these days, so Adkins said his goal with the new set was to draw fans to his live shows.

On this, Adkins and Keith are in lockstep. That made it easier for the 48-year-old Adkins to leave the safe haven of Capitol Nashville, the label he had been with since he cut his first album in 1996.

"I think the thing that makes it most comfortable for me is the fact that Toby doesn't look at the record label as a revenue generator," Adkins said. "He looks at the label as a marketing-advertising tool that we need to get our music out there so we can sell tickets to shows, which is completely 180 degrees from the other record label heads in the business."

Show Dog-Universal president Mark Wright says the label has a plan to keep Adkins visible over the next few months during the all-important third and fourth fiscal quarters of the year — "the selling season," as he calls it. Wright believes Adkins has a much more visible profile than most of his country peers, yet doesn't get the credit for it.

"I really believe that he is a bigger star with the fans than even the industry knows," Wright said. "The industry sometimes makes a judgment on somebody based on this, this and this, and they don't realize how big an impact people really have on the fans. And he's real big star with the fans."

A good example of this was the always rowdy crowd reaction when Adkins hit the stage during a series of special performances of the hit single "Hillbilly Bone" with Blake Shelton over the summer. Shelton, who netted Academy of Country Music and CMT video awards with Adkins, couldn't help but notice.

"I think that really comes across, that reaction you hear when he comes out — people go crazy," Shelton said. "It's because he's Trace Adkins. He's one of the coolest, biggest ... guys in entertainment. He just has this huge presence."

His appearance on "The Celebrity Apprentice" two years ago led to more work with Donald Trump and a higher national profile than he's had before. He wrote a book. He's set to start filming a small part in "The Lincoln Lawyer" with Matthew McConaughey and he's got a single on the Billboard country chart.

And there's more in the works. Think of it as Adkins' two-fisted response to the challenges of the digital age.

"It is what it is," Adkins said. "Those words have never been truer than regarding where we find ourselves in this business today. The technological changes and advances are out of our control, so we just need to learn to roll with the punches and deal with it or we're just going to sit in the corner and suck our thumbs and cry. There is no other alternative."