These days, Blake Shelton’s a household name—after 23 seasons (!) on The Voice, they retired his chair. He’s sold over 10 million records, scored 15 No. 1 country hits, and in 2017, People named him Sexiest Man Alive. But once upon a time Shelton was a young nobody trying to scratch out a life in music. The song “Ol’ Red” was a favorite of his, and helped him get over the threshold.
In the Beginning
The story starts in Ada, Oklahoma, where Shelton grew up and began playing music in clubs during his teens. At 16, he received a Denbo Diamond Award, given to top young entertainers in the state. He was also asked to perform at a tribute for Mae Boren Axton, who wrote “Heartbreak Hotel.” Impressed by his talent, Axton suggested he look her up if he was ever in Nashville.
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Two weeks after graduating high school, Shelton moved to Nashville and called on Axton. She found him a job immediately, though not in the way he anticipated. She paid him to paint her gazebo and do odd jobs around the yard. As it turns out, her son, the actor and singer/songwriter Hoyt Axton, was sitting in her driveway on his tour bus. After watching Shelton work for a while, Hoyt invited him onto the bus, and sang him “Ol’ Red” with only his pounding on a bus table for accompaniment.
“Probably the biggest thing to come out of my relationship with Mae and Hoyt was him singing ‘Ol’ Red’ for me on his tour bus,” Shelton told the Florida Times-Union in 2005. “Just tapping on a table, singing a cappella. I held onto that song for seven years until I was able to get to it, but there was no way for him to know what that meant to me.”
Great Start! Can You Follow It?
Shelton would finally release his self-titled debut in 2001, and the debut single, “Austin,” was a huge hit; in fact, it was the first time since Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart” that a new artist’s premiere single stayed atop the chart for five weeks.
It was a great start, but the second single didn’t catch. “Austin” had proven so popular, sometimes Shelton would perform it twice a night. He needed a second hit. At the same time, Warner Brothers was ending its relationship with his label, the subsidiary Giant Records, and there was a question whether they’d pick up his contract.
With his career hanging in the balance, he pushed for “Ol’ Red” as his third single. “Once I got it on my album, I had to fight to get it released as a single. Then it was another battle to get them to put it out as a video,” Shelton said in a 2010 webcast.
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It not only went to No. 1, but went platinum and has became Shelton’s signature tune—despite the fact that he didn’t write the song, and artists such as Johnny Cash, George Jones, and Kenny Rogers had tried and failed to chart with it in years past.
“It was a close call,” Shelton told the Chattanooga Times in 2001, shortly after Warner Brothers picked up his contract. “That song just kept everything alive for me.”
Ol’ Red
The song was co-written by James “Bo” Bohan, Don Goodman, and Mark Sherrill in 1990, and was originally performed by George Jones. It tells the tale of a man incarcerated in Georgia near the Florida state line; he’s serving a 99-year sentence for killing a man who was sleeping with his wife.
The character’s planning a Shawshank-like escape, first by befriending the warden, which allows him to care for the prison’s preternatural bloodhound. The dog is his biggest obstacle as it has never failed to track down an escapee. The singer has a cousin bring a female dog down to mate with Ol’ Red, then holds back her attentions to amp up the dog’s ardor for a few days until he was ready to make his move.
I made my run with the evening sun
And I smiled when I heard ’em turn Red out
‘Cause I was headed north to Tennessee
And Ol’ Red was headed south
The song closes with a classic country line as the singer notes the symmetry of his situation: Love got me in here, and love got me out.
It certainly got Blake Shelton out of a tough situation, and not only did it become his signature song, but in partnership with Colin Reed, CEO of Ryman Hospitality Properties (which runs the Grand Ole Opry), Shelton has opened several restaurant/music venues called Ole Red in the mold of the Hard Rock Cafe. There are Ole Reds in Orlando, Nashville, and Shelton’s hometown of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, with more on the way.
In 2020, the legendary Nashville radio station WSM declared it Ol’ Red week in advance of Shelton’s performance at the Grand Ole Opry with his wife, Gwen Stefani. Among the other special performances was one by “Red” co-writer Mark Sherrill, who was running a bait shop back when he helped pen the future hit.
“People come from all over the country to hear me sing the song,” Sherrill told the station. “I had two couples say that song saved their lives, and I wondered what kind of life did they have, because it’s about two dogs getting it on. All I can figure is, people love a good story.”
Photo by Todd Stefani