Disturbin' Cowboy

At last, Brooks got a label chief he approved of: Quigley, the brains behind the Central Park coup, has little experience in music but has successfully sold everything from Rolling Rock to Swiss Time. He agrees with Brooks that the company was indeed stingy when it counted most. "The marketing effort was nonexistent on Fresh Horses — and that's being kind," Quigley says. "We're passing the total SoundScan of that album in six weeks with Sevens. So I don't think we're doing anything but a normal marketing job; if you expose his music to major markets, you'll get these results." He sets Sevens' actual marketing budget at $15 million.

The replacement of Hendricks, a music guy of limited marketing chops, with Quigley, a marketing figure of limited music chops, would seem to represent a difficult shift for country music's capital, from handshake town to corporate power center. "Nashville deserves a bit of the blame here, because the truth is, it sees itself in Garth," says Feiler, whose book Dreaming Out Loud ships in May. "Everybody tries to sell as many records as possible, get the media, get the best deal; Garth just does it better. Nashville wanted to believe he was a gee-whiz, just-so-glad-to-be-here cowboy, because that's how it wants to view itself. And when he began to be seen as a person obsessed with numbers and deals, they turned on him, because they didn't want to hear that that's what Nashville has become to a lot of people."

So what happened to the gentler, famously generous Brooks, the guy whose patience for fans is seemingly inexhaustible, who once signed autographs and posed for photos at Fan Fair for 23 hours straight? His defenders believe that Brooks' caring side is still there, extended toward all except those who stand in the way of his sharing it with as many followers as possible. "He plays by the rules when it comes to dealing with his fans; he'll do whatever it takes to maintain that relationship," says publicist Gleason. "He's not so big on the politics of the city."

Which may be the understatement of the year. If country's business community is a little suspicious of Brooks these days, the feeling is definitely mutual. "The industry is probably the last place I feel welcome," Brooks admitted not long after being noticeably MIA at last fall's Country Music Association awards show, where he was again voted Entertainer of the Year. "I know that's strange. But this was my favorite CMA night I've ever spent. Because I wasn't there." Brooks instead pointedly chose to book himself a tour date that night, living up to his populist commitment to prefer the company of friends in low places.

(Additional reporting by Alanna Nash)