Garth Brooks recently announced that he is releasing a duets album in 2023. Although he and Ashley McBryde wrote a song together in 2021, he reveals she is not one of the artists on the record. Still, he remains one of McBryde’s biggest fans, and says he would love nothing more than to collaborate with her someday.
“I’d do a song with her in a heartbeat … We’ve written together,” Brooks shared on his weekly Inside Studio G Facebook series. “Of course, when it’s Ashley McBryde, you’re sitting across from her and you say, ‘Hey, try this line,’ and you hear her just sing that line, you’re going, ‘Well, I don’t know if that line is just a pile of sh– or not because it sounded so fantastic.’ You can’t tell, because everything she sings sounds like a smash.”
It was Brooks who extended the invitation to McBryde to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry, surprising her with a virtual appearance from the famed Opry stage, while McBryde was appearing on CBS Mornings.
“I’m here for a proposal,” Brooks said at the time. “This is part of a family that keeps growing. You know where we’re at. We’re at the Grand Ole Opry. I’m standing in the circle of wood right now where you stand. Miss Ashley McBryde, on behalf of the Opry and myself as an Opry member – I’m gonna try not to cry – we would love for you to consider becoming the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry.”
In an earlier Inside Studio G episode, Brooks first revealed he was doing a duets album, leading fans to erroneously believe it was with his wife, Trisha Yearwood. While that is not the case, the Country Music Hall of Fame member says his greatest musical moments have been with Yearwood.
“I will tell you this, the duets record that’s coming is not just of the queen,” Brooks said. “The queen’s in there, of course, ’cause you can’t do it without her. … If I can be remembered in this business, I would much rather be remembered as a part of a duet career with Trisha Yearwood than I would as myself as a solo artist.”
Brooks will begin his new Las Vegas residency, Garth Brooks/Plus ONE, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on May 18, with the residency already extended into 2024.
“Vegas is the place where anything goes, and The Colosseum at Caesars is the heart of Vegas,” Brooks said of his new residency. “The perfect combination to present a show that will not only push the envelope, it’s gonna shred it.”
Tickets for Brooks’ Las Vegas residency can be found at Ticketmaster.com.
