Rascal Flatts Yesterday and Today

As the world of country music fights to stay traditional in its own rights, younger artists are popping up with a new pop feel that has the older guys scratching their collective heads. Out of the dust rides in three boy-band type guys that seem to be making waves in Nashville and abroad. Gary LeVox, Joe Don Rooney, and Jay DeMarcus, better known as Rascal Flatts, have turned some heads in the country world. 

The trio has come a long way from doing small gigs in Printer’s Alley in Nashville to playing for well over 750,000 people last year on their world wide headlining tour. From their self-titled debut album released in June of 2000, Rascal Flatts daunted an impressive 3 top tens and a number one single "Praying for Daylight". Several nominations for CMA's and ACM's followed that same year. 

One of my favorites from that release was "I’m Moving On", which itself was one of the for mentioned top 10 singles and has continued to do well over all. In 2002, the guys collaborated on their second and very highly awaited release simply titled "Melt". The follow up to their first release earned them the 2002 Horizon Award and was the first co-produced album by all three members of the group. This album continued the trend of several top tens and a couple number ones. One of which spent three weeks in the top spot entitled "These Days". 

That same year again proved to be a good year for the trio when they went on tour with one of country music’s bad boys - Toby Keith. The next year, 2003, found the guys out on the road with Brooks and Dunn. As the tour was getting hot and the guys were putting it all out there, they released a double cd/dvd package that revealed the highlights of that year’s tour and included hits from their old releases as well as some classic jams picked from their earlier influences. Among the remakes were Foreplay/Long Time, made popular by the group Boston, and Free Ride, another classic rock favorite.