ALTON – On Friday night, legendary country artist Travis Tritt showed long-time fans at the Liberty Bank Amphitheater in Alton that for him performing and recording remains a labor of love.
Country music and performing are in Tritt’s blood and he said one of the key things that has kept him alive as an artist is his voice doesn’t sound like anyone else’s for whatever reason with its special unique quality.
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“I don’t sound like any other artist,” he said in a recorded interview. “When I first started, as soon as you heard my voice on the radio you noticed me immediately. The same was true for other artists at the time: Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Clint Black who came out at the same time. We all sounded very different. It is still easy to recognize our music and that has kept us very vital over the years.”
What makes things fresh for Tritt, including with his performance on Friday night is it brings people back to a different place in time.
“Music is something you can always remember certain events in life by,” Tritt said. “It is like a soundtrack playing behind you. We remember certain things by songs and that is the really unique thing about being a musician. This can be dealing with love life, how we feel about a job, social status, our country or any of a number of things. Music is sort of the backdrop to all of that. I think that keeps it fresh and different for me.”
Tritt said he has been able to perform with an abundance of hit records over the last 25 years and that gives fans an opportunity to have a wide range of songs they can identify with.
“I have done songs thousands of times over and over and what makes it new is the response of the audience every night,” he said. “When you go on stage and perform the songs in front of your fans it is really special. The new audience make it unique every night and special.”
It is much more difficult for someone to make it big and stay there today in the music business, Tritt said.
“It is probably a lot harder to break into the business and then figure out how to make a living with it as an artist than when I got started,” he said. “So many things are in play today from the Internet, social media and things people use to have access to music, making it more difficult for artists to break it into the business.”
Tritt said he still gets butterflies in his stomach before he goes out and performs on stage.
“It is a feeling that is irreplaceable and I can’t even imagine thinking about the word retirement,” he said. “I enjoy it too much. I love what I do for a living and love the feeling I get when I go out and perform for people.
“I love seeing the response from fans for me and I can’t imagine how I could be in a better situation to love what I do every single night and to be doing what God put me on this Earth to do.”
SEE TRAVIS TRITT PHOTO GALLERY FROM PERFORMANCE IN ALTON BELOW:
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