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PEOPLE & ARTS Thursday 15 March 2018
After a lost record deal, Scotty

McCreery rebounds on a song

By KRISTIN M. HALL He managed to get some ist and even releasing a
Associated Press Top 10 radio hits with "See memoir.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — You Tonight" and "Feelin' It," "In Nashville, in particular, if
Two years ago, country but he also dealt with the you get dealt a fatal blow
singer Scotty McCreery bias that many talent-show like what we got dealt in
found out he lost his re- competitors run up against 2016, you don't often get a
cord deal with Mercury/ in the music industry. second chance," McCre-
Interscope while shooting "I think we've had to work ery said. "So I knew if we
an episode for "American hard to establish ourselves were going to bet my ca- In this April 2, 2017 file photo Scotty McCreery arrives at the 52nd
Idol," the show he won in away from 'American Idol,' reer on anything, the resur- annual Academy of Country Music Awards at the T-Mobile Are-
2011. He had come back to not just be the TV guy, gence of my career, I am na in Las Vegas.
to mentor new contestants but to be the country mu- going to bet on 'Five More Associated Press
on the show, which was sic artist that writes songs Minutes.'"
then on Fox, but his own and tells stories and can McCreery's rebound play the top of Billboard's coun- "Feels like I am starting
career was at a precipice. sing songs," said McCreery, worked. He released "Five try airplay chart this month, fresh," he said. "Feels like
"I was trying to put on a who adds that he's always More Minutes" last year just in time for "Seasons I am starting over almost.
happy face while I was film- been proud of his "Idol" be- while still unsigned. The Change," coming out on Like this is the beginning
ing," the 24-year-old singer ginning. He's even returned song became an emo- Friday. of my career, almost to a
with the baritone voice to the new season of "Idol," tional part of his live shows, It's hard to imagine staging sense. I feel like at 24 I know
said. "That was a rough now on ABC, as a mentor. earning standing ovations. a career comeback at 24, who I am a lot better than
week." But McCreery feared that He signed to independent but McCreery considers his back in the day and I know
McCreery, who is from after losing his record deal, Nashville label Thirty Tigers new record an introduction how to express that through
North Carolina, had started he was losing the rights to Records, which pushed it to of sorts. my songs."q
his career on a high at 18 the songs he had recorded
by becoming the youngest while he was still signed.
male artist and first country In particular, he wanted
artist to debut his first album to get back a song called
on the Billboard 200. Al- "Five More Minutes," which
though his albums sold well, he wrote after losing his
McCreery leaned toward grandfather in 2015.
the more traditional side of McCreery spent a year ne-
the genre, when bro-coun- gotiating the purchase of
try and party songs ruled those songs, still out tour-
the airwaves. ing as an independent art-

Pat Conroy leaves

behind fascinating

glimpse into his life

By KIM CURTIS efficient and easy-flowing
Associated Press narrative. Conroy died two
Anyone familiar with Pat years later of pancreatic
Conroy — whether through cancer.
his novels like "The Lords of Clark organizes her con-
Discipline" or "The Prince versations chronologically,
of Tides" or his memoirs like beginning with Conroy as
"The Water is Wide" or "My a military brat with the ty-
Losing Season" — knows he rannical father portrayed in
left behind pieces of him- “The Great Santini” through
self in everything he wrote. his years in the American
In "My Exaggerated Life," South, Rome and San Fran-
Conroy truly tells all. In his cisco. We learn about his
own approachable and marriages, his depression,
witty voice, he reveals his his insecurities.
art, his craft, his family and He talks about his literary
his foibles. crushes and disappoint-
During the spring and sum- ments, his inability to say
mer of 2014, Conroy spent “no” to any fellow author
more than 200 hours on the who asked him to blurb his
phone with writer and oral or her book and his thera-
historian Katherine Clark, pist-hero. And we hear it all
who beautifully pulls off the in his wonderfully brilliant,
challenge of assembling insightful, self-deprecating
those conversations into an voice.q