NASHVILLE, TN. (903
Music PR) - Neal McCoy, multi-platinum and award-winning country music dynamo, achieves his latest goal – full artistic freedom – with today's release of THAT'S LIFE, the first album on his own label, 903 Music.
From the current radio hit 'Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On,' to the heart-tugging romance of 'You Let Me Be the Hero,' with guest shots ranging from his playful duo with former mentor Charley Pride on 'You're My Jamaica' to the raw yet emotional recitation from General Tommy Franks on 'The Last of a Dying Breed,' THAT'S LIFE makes clear what legions of fans already know:
Neal McCoy stands among the finest singers in music today – and now, at last, as his own man, in full charge of his destiny.
'For all the success we've had over the years, I always felt something was missing,' McCoy says. 'Now, with my first album on my own label, I'm able to do the songs I want to do just as I want to do them.'
Produced by multi-instrument virtuoso Eric Silver, THAT'S LIFE features McCoy's most expressive, wide-ranging vocals ever. As the winner of every – repeat, every – major fan-driven award for which he's been nominated, he emerges on THAT'S LIFE as country music's best-kept secret – a secret, that is, to everybody but the millions who've lined up for his shows, turned three of his albums platinum and another gold, booted five of his singles to the top of the charts, and twice voted him TNN/Music City News' 'Entertainer of the Year'.
'The only thing the songs on this album have in common is that each one appeals to me,' McCoy explains. 'At my show we might do anything from Led Zeppelin to the Village People to even Neal McCoy songs. That's what I wanted with THAT'S LIFE: to stretch the boundaries.'
THAT'S LIFE is in fact about life, its good and bad breaks, in which a lake and a longneck symbolize the bonds of friendship ('Got Mud'), or an old pickup truck teases sweet, non-automotive memories ('Tail on the Tailgate'), and Neal's rhythm-and-rhyme rumination on The Beverly Hillbillies stakes his claim as the original master of, as the song title says, 'Hillbilly Rap.'
The reach of THAT'S LIFE mirrors McCoy's engagement with the world beyond music. In recent years he's flown into harm's way to entertain troops on USO visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, jetted to Las Vegas to croon and jive onstage with Wayne Newton, and come back home to Longview, Texas, to join his wife Melinda in overseeing their East Texas Angel Network (ETAN), which has raised millions of dollars to support families of children with terminal or life-threatening diseases.
In May 2005, in recognition of his activities with ETAN and the USO, McCoy received the Academy of Country Music/Home Depot Humanitarian Award – the ACM's first-ever fan-voted distinction.
Clearly, the fans do get it. And with THAT'S LIFE, the rest of the world will get it too:
Neal McCoy is everyman's superstar. His music is a stream of American moments – snapshots in song.
That's Neal McCoy – and THAT'S LIFE is what country music is all about.
