BBQ Fest headliner Rodney Atkins: A curious bay area connection

Country music performer Rodney Atkins, who headlines the Tampa Bay Barbecue Festival Saturday, has a Tampa Bay connection.

In the years 2006 through 2008, the Tennessee-born Atkins scored four consecutive No. 1 songs from the same album. A feat which, up until that time, had only been accomplished by fellow Curb Records artist Tim McGraw.

The lynchpin, according to Atkins, was Curb’s vice president of A&R (Artists & Repertoire) Phil Gernhard.

The music executive grew up in Sarasota, and opened his first office in St. Petersburg, where he discovered and produced hit records for Lobo, Jim Stafford, the Bellamy Brothers and the Royal Guardsmen. He was also a pioneering bay area concert producer, bringing the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Elton John and Derek & the Dominos to theaters in St. Pete and Tampa.

By the ‘00s, Gernhard had quit producing and was employed by Curb, based in Nashville. He’d helped engineer McGraw’s success by working with his producer, and by choosing which songs would be chosen as all-important singles.

Then McGraw left the label, and Gernhard, behind.

Atkins’ first Curb album was a flop. That’s when Gernhard stepped in with significant career advice. The veteran record man hoped to repeat McGraw’s success.

“He said ‘forget those producers, they’re just tainting what your vision is,” Atkins said in the book Record Man: The Story of Phil Gernhard, Florida’s No. 1 Record Producer (St. Petersburg Press). “They’re making it about them, and it can’t be that. I’m telling everybody to leave you alone. I’m going to teach you how to find your own voice. How to produce your own records. How to be tough on yourself.’

“Man, we talked every week at least, sometimes more. He was the biggest music mentor I’ve ever had.”

In 2007: Phil Gernhard, left, Rodney Atkins and label boss Mike Curb. Photo: Curb Records.

It was Gernhard who encouraged Atkins to re-invent himself, from the Stetson-sporting balladeer of his first album into an everyday “working man.” Wearing a ball cap.

“I’d sung live a lot, in the corner of a bar, playing for tips with a real shitty sound system, or no sound system,” Atkins said. “I didn’t know how to sing on a microphone. He explained to me about actors: ‘Somebody that’s on Broadway, they have to do big movements, move their hands to send emotions out, move their body in big ways. Some people can’t make the transition to a camera because it’s so sensitive it picks up just raising an eyebrow.’

“He said ‘You’re behind the camera now. The microphone is so sensitive, you have to learn that you don’t have to work quite as hard.’ And that was eye-opening. Or ear-opening! He encouraged me to forget the rules, forget everything I’d heard or been told and just figure it out. So I started working at home.”

The first song recorded for Atkins’ second Curb album was a hardscrabble country rocker, “If You’re Going Through Hell.” Atkins and producer Ted Hewitt proudly played the finished cut for Gernhard’s approval.

“We turned the song into Phil and he said ‘I like this, I like your vocal. I need you guys to go put bagpipes on it.’”

Bagpipes.

“And we’re going ‘This guy’s crazy! He’s f–kin’ crazy!’”

Gernhard knew what he was talking about. “We went in and put bagpipes on it,” said Atkins, “and it really became an anthem. It’s crazy. It changed that record and gave it an almost church feel.”

It became Atkins’ first chart-topper. “When we finished the album,” reflected Atkins, “he called me and said ‘Congratulations. You’ve got an album that’s gonna change your life.”

“If You’re Going Through Hell,” “Watching You” and “These Are My People” went to the top, and Gernhard pushed for a fourth single. “Cleaning This Gun (Come on in Boy)” was released in October 2007. “A lot of people at the label at the time thought it was too risky, because it was about kids and guns,” Atkins said. “But I’d been playing it out in the real world, and so Phil and I talked about it. He asked me about some of the responses I got. Then he went after it with radio, testing the waters and stuff.”

In February, “Cleaning This Gun” hit No. 1.

A few days after the announcement, Phil Gernhard committed suicide. With a gun.

Few people knew about the record man’s longtime struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.

Atkins remembers every word of their last conversation, when Phil had called to tell him the good news. “He told me he was proud of me. He told me to make sure I keep writing. He said if you don’t stay creative, you get sick. And he actually told me he loved me.”

Tampa Bay Barbecue Festival website

Catalyst Senior Writer and Editor Bill DeYoung is the author of Record Man: The Story of Phil Gernhard, Florida’s No. 1 Record Producer.