Phil Vassar found out that country music still is a play-it-safe genre when the song "Bobbi With An I" was floated to radio as a first single off of his new CD, "The Traveling Circus."
The tune tells the tale of a guy who is a small-town everyday Joe during the work week, but shows up one evening at a nightclub dressed as a woman.
While he clearly meant it to be an over-the-top, funny song, country radio was skittish about sharing in the joke.
"Everybody is so busy trying to keep their jobs, they're not doing their jobs," Vassar said in a recent interview in advance of a stop in Lowell on his current concert tour. "Everybody's politically correct and everybody's so afraid to even talk or make a move."
Vassar was disappointed because he knows "Bobbi With An I" has been a hit with his live audiences.
"We still do the song every night in the show and it (the crowd reaction) is off the hook," he said.
The failure of "Bobbi With An I" as a single is hardly the first time Vassar has gone outside the usual country music box.
In fact, the native of Lynchburg, Va., began running into obstacles because he didn't fit the mold of a typical country star almost from the day he moved to Nashville in the mid-1980s, hoping his song writing and musical skills would earn him a record deal.
A main problem was that he played piano, not guitar.
"I fought it forever," Vassar said. "(Label people literally said), 'Man, you need to put on starched jeans, a shirt and a hat and play guitar like everybody else does.' I said I'm not going to do that because that is what everybody else does. Let them do it. I just want to be different. And of course, Nashville hates anything different. They're scared of it."
Vassar did build an enviable track record as a songwriter, with stars such as Alan Jackson, Jo Dee Messina and Tim McGraw (who turned "My Next Thirty Years" into a No. 1 hit) recording his songs.
And finally in 2000, Arista Nashville decided to take a chance on Vassar, piano and all, and his long quest for a record deal was over.
The label's faith in Vassar quickly was rewarded when his 2000 self-titled debut CD sold more than a million copies and spawned four hit singles (including the chart-topper, "Just Another Day In Paradise").
Vassar hasn't enjoyed that kind of success since, however.
His next four albums won some hits (including another pair of chart-toppers), but none came close to matching the popularity of that debut CD. And eventually he split with Arista and signed to Universal South prior to making his 2008 CD, "Prayer of a Common Man."
Rather than try even harder to fit in with the prevailing winds of country music, Vassar has decided he's going to follow his own artistic instincts and let his individuality shine more brightly than ever.
"I got to a point where I said, you know, I'm just going to do what I do. I'm just going to have some fun," he said.
That outlook is apparent with "The Traveling Circus."
Vassar decided to produce the CD himself — a rarity in a country music. He also had his touring band record the songs on "The Traveling Circus" instead of the usual approach of using studio musicians.
"I think the studio musicians are great, but they're always playing on your record at 10. Faith Hill's at 2, Tim McGraw's at 6 and the next day they're doing whoever, whoever, whoever," Vassar said. "So you get the same producers, the same musicians. It all just sounds alike to me anymore. I'm sick of it."
With "The Traveling Circus," he said, he wanted to do something a little bit different and do it his own way.
"And sink or swim, whatever," he explained. "I love it. I think it sounds great. I think it sounds more like me. It sounds like my band when I'm on the road."
Lyrically, "The Traveling Circus" is perhaps Vassar's most personal album. Even "Bobbi With An I" is based on a guy Vassar knew.
He also writes about his 2007 divorce and the process of regaining his emotional footing on "Everywhere I Go" and "A Year From Now," both ballads on the CD.
In the meantime, "Tequila Town," along with "Bobbi With An I" and "Save Tonight For Me," give the new CD a lighter dimension to go with the heavier material. Vassar said he chose the circus theme, first of all, because it reflects the life of a touring musician and his band, and also because it's a metaphor for life.
"It's that roller coaster ride," Vassar said. "It's not the merry-go-round. It's the roller coaster."
On tour, Vassar is taking the traveling circus theme a step further, bringing out his biggest concert production yet.
"I've got zebra leopard pianos. The guitar amps, bass amps and all that stuff are in cages," Vassar said. "And I've got, Coldplay did 'Speed Of Sound,' this big video, and they built this big light wall .... I got some of that wall through those guys. So it's really going to be exciting."
If You Go
What: Phil Vassar in concert.
When: 8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 11.
Where: Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 E. Merrimack St., Lowell,
How: Tickets are $55.75. $39.75, $29.75. Call 978-454-2299, or visit www.lowellauditorium.com/.
