Big Rich Sheet Music And Biography

"John Rich Biography - Big Kenny Biography"

Big And Rich Biography

When John Rich met Big Kenny in 1998, both had been through the record industry wringer. John Rich had been in the country band Lonestar before launching a brief solo career. Big Kenny didn't become a full-time musician until he was in his 30s, but a big record deal and the ensuing album went nowhere, so he launched a wild outfit called luvjOi. A friend tried to drag Rich to one of Kenny's shows at a Nashville club; Rich's response, he says, was "Big what? I don't think I want to see anybody named that." But he went anyway -- whereupon he was whacked in face by one of the many pieces of bubblegum thrown from the stage into the audience. ("I thought that everybody who came to one of my shows should leave with something," explains Big Kenny, not unreasonably.) Despite the tensions caused by this aerial assault, the two men met after the show and made tentative arrangements to write songs together. Then one or the other of them blew off the first three appointments.
When they finally did get together, they liked the first song they wrote and loved the second, "I Pray for You." They weren't ready to record together quite yet, so the song became John's first single as a solo artist. His subsequent album was adored by the listeners who heard it -- but not many people did, because the record label dropped him via e-mail before they actually put the thing out.  John and Big Kenny became friends and writing partners, and they kept jamming at each other's shows and clambering onstage with singer-songwriter pals like James Otto and Jon Nicholson. The casual sessions soon turned into a weekly Tuesday night gig at a small Nashville establishment called the Pub of Love. "We wanted to do it on the worst night of the week in the weirdest place in town," says Rich. "So that if anybody showed up, they'd be there because they wanted to hear music, not because they wanted to schmooze."