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There seem to be eras in country music where particular artists seem to dominate. Back in the day you had people like Conway Twitty or Johnny Cash, which led into the 1980s when George Strait was at the top of his game. Then, in the 1990s, no country singer even came close to finding the type of success that Brooks enjoyed.

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Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on February 7, 1962, Brooks is one of the best selling artists of all-time. No solo act has sold any more albums in the United States than Brooks, and he’s second overall to only The Beatles. The former high school athlete that also participated at Oklahoma State University got into music after his college days, playing in bars around his home state that garnered a lot of traction. It didn’t take long for Brooks to find the attention of record studios, and the artist who would eventually win dozens upon dozens of awards during his career was on his way.

Brooks released his first album in April 1989, which was self-titled, and nearly made his way to the top of the country charts, and also secured a spot in the top 15 of the mainstream charts. This was thanks in large part to his country hits “Much Too Young (To Feel This Old)” and “Not Counting You”, as well as a pair of number one hits with “The Dance” and “If Tomorrow Never Comes”.

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For many years, Brooks released albums that reached the number one spot in either the country or mainstream charts, never dropping lower than the second spot. “No Fences” was Brooks’s second album in 1990, and it contained four number one songs with two of his most iconic hits: “Friends in Low Places” and “The Thunder Rolls”.

During the rest of the 1990s, Brooks released seven more albums, with only the Christmas album “Beyond the Seasons” not being a number one album, and that’s quite impressive when you consider it’s a Christmas album that still reached number two. Perhaps his most successful albums of the decade were “The Chase”, “Ropin’ the Wind” and “In Pieces”.

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At this point, Brooks had too many number one songs in the country charts to even mention, but there were definitely some highlights. “The River”, “She’s Every Woman” and “To Make You Feel My Love” were among the biggest hits, though Brooks capped off the end of the millennium in a strange way. In development with a movie called “The Lamb” that was never released, Brooks played a character named Chris Gaines. Brooks released an album under this pseudonym called “The Life of Chris Gaines” that went platinum.

Some felt that Brooks might have tarnished his career a little bit with the character, but did find success in the early 2000s. He released two more albums with “Scarecrow” and “The Lost Sessions”, which while not charting, did sell over three million copies. Brooks then retired in 2005 from studio albums, but was releasing singles afterward including the number one hit “More Than a Memory”.

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Now, Brooks is back, and has been since 2013, releasing songs such as “Ask Me How I Know”, “All Day Long” and “Dive Bar”. This includes three more albums since his return with “Man Against Machine” and “Gunslinger”, as well as a Christmas album. Now, Brooks is working on yet another album that has the working title of “Fun”, which he’s having plenty of.

Lately, Brooks has gotten into playing stadiums for the first time in his career, bringing in massive audiences. This included playing the first ever concert at the famous Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. For Brooks, it’s about the fans and giving them a new experience. “They made you what you are so you belong to them,” he said. “So if they want this? You give ‘em that.”

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He did add, though, that he was a bit “scared to go to stadiums from arena because you don’t want to lose that personal touch that you somehow figured out how to do with 17,000 (people). Now there’s 75,000 people. But what Notre Dame taught us is it’s still all about the music...To hear 75,000 all singing the same key, same everything, that’s what you signed up for this gig for.”

If it was up to Brooks he’d appear on stage and not have to do anything else. “Playing is the most fun part,” he said. “The most un-fun part is the business.” As for the future, Brooks says that “It’s going to be nothing but joy for me music-wise. The people, the industry, has made the mistake of letting me back in. My retiring days are behind me and I just want to run, run, run.”

“That’s what you want to do as an older artist,” he added. “You want to reinvent, but there has to be that vein in there for why people were listening to you before in the first place...Music keeps you eternally young. It just does.”

When it’s all said and done someday, how would Brooks want to be remembered. “Whey they say, ‘What is your superpower?’ I think my superpower is I’m just a regular guy. So if it affects me, hopefully it affects you. So if there’s a song I like hopefully you’ll like it. So, if I do have a superpower, I just want to be the guy next door. Which is pretty easy for me, because I’m lazy. Very lazy and just very ordinary. And I like that, the fact that somebody lazy and ordinary can be doing what I’m doing on this level.”