DARLINGTON - Craig Morgan could be considered country music's stealth star.
He's had back-to-back No. 1 singles, massive radio airplay - including 2005's biggest country hit - solid album sales and a belated nomination in 2006 as the Academy of Country Music's new male vocalist of the year, yet the recognition hasn't quite caught up to his popularity and success.
This year's music headliner at the Lafayette County Fair hopes that's all about to change with his latest CD an d initial single, "Little Bit of Life," already another Top 10 hit.
Morgan is scheduled to perform at 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 27, at the fair. He will be preceded by Darlington's Brianna Hardyman, performing at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 after Friday.
"Little Bit of Life" is Morgan's fourth album and third for independent label Broken Bow Records. His previous albums spawned such hits as "I Got You," "Redneck Yacht Club," and "Almost Home," as well as "That's What I Love About Sunday," which spent five weeks at No. 1 and ended 2005 as country radio's most played song.
Morgan finished 2006 in the top 10 on Billboard magazine's top male country artists chart and in the top 20 on the magazine's overall list of top country artists.
Billboard has called Morgan "a writer and interpreter of highly visual story songs," something he acknowledges is his specialty. He's known, he says, as "the singer-songwriter who writes songs about the little things in life."
"I have a passion for making little things very visual and big, stuff that can be easily overlooked," Morgan said.
"Little Bit of Life" features four of Morgan's own compositions. He says it's more personal than any of his work to date. In songs like "I Am," which Morgan wrote with Phil O'Donnell and Shane Minor, listeners get a glimpse of a down-to-earth family man and Army veteran who grew up poor and still values hard work and life's simple pleasures like hunting and racing his off-road motorcycle.
"We grew up tough: dirt road, singlewide trailer," Morgan said of his childhood, recalling that his mother would milk a neighbor's goat to make butter.
Morgan said that upbringing makes him unafraid of hard work. Morgan still sometimes helps his crew load in gear on show days.
"I don't want to be so good that I can't help lift boxes," he said. "I don't think we should ever get so far away from the people that are out there paying the good hard-earned money to come see us."
For the new CD, Morgan and his longtime co-producer O'Donnell added a third man to the mix with uberproducer Keith Stegall - best known for his work with Alan Jackson and Terri Clark - joining them behind the board. Morgan says Stegall brought his "experience and an ear for great songs" to the recording process.
For the first time with "Little Bit of Life," Morgan feels like he's closely captured the sound and energy of his live shows on a CD. Vocally, he said, "I really opened up" in the studio, resulting in an album that's "a lot more me and a lot more relaxed. After doing this for a while, you get a little more comfortable and confident."
"There's nothing more rewarding as an artist and more discouraging as a producer than to have people come out (to shows) and say, 'You're even better live than your record.' I just want people to hear on the record what they hear live," Morgan said. "We try not to manipulate in the studio too much. When you go to tweaking and changing and tightening and cleaning you take away from the personality that's in the vocal."
Morgan has been invited to perform at the legendary Grand Ole Opry more than 150 times in his career. He also frequently performs at military bases both in the U.S. and abroad, saying he remembers how much those visits from entertainers meant to him during his 10 years on active duty.
He's had back-to-back No. 1 singles, massive radio airplay - including 2005's biggest country hit - solid album sales and a belated nomination in 2006 as the Academy of Country Music's new male vocalist of the year, yet the recognition hasn't quite caught up to his popularity and success.
This year's music headliner at the Lafayette County Fair hopes that's all about to change with his latest CD an d initial single, "Little Bit of Life," already another Top 10 hit.
Morgan is scheduled to perform at 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 27, at the fair. He will be preceded by Darlington's Brianna Hardyman, performing at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 after Friday.
"Little Bit of Life" is Morgan's fourth album and third for independent label Broken Bow Records. His previous albums spawned such hits as "I Got You," "Redneck Yacht Club," and "Almost Home," as well as "That's What I Love About Sunday," which spent five weeks at No. 1 and ended 2005 as country radio's most played song.
Morgan finished 2006 in the top 10 on Billboard magazine's top male country artists chart and in the top 20 on the magazine's overall list of top country artists.
Billboard has called Morgan "a writer and interpreter of highly visual story songs," something he acknowledges is his specialty. He's known, he says, as "the singer-songwriter who writes songs about the little things in life."
"I have a passion for making little things very visual and big, stuff that can be easily overlooked," Morgan said.
"Little Bit of Life" features four of Morgan's own compositions. He says it's more personal than any of his work to date. In songs like "I Am," which Morgan wrote with Phil O'Donnell and Shane Minor, listeners get a glimpse of a down-to-earth family man and Army veteran who grew up poor and still values hard work and life's simple pleasures like hunting and racing his off-road motorcycle.
"We grew up tough: dirt road, singlewide trailer," Morgan said of his childhood, recalling that his mother would milk a neighbor's goat to make butter.
Morgan said that upbringing makes him unafraid of hard work. Morgan still sometimes helps his crew load in gear on show days.
"I don't want to be so good that I can't help lift boxes," he said. "I don't think we should ever get so far away from the people that are out there paying the good hard-earned money to come see us."
For the new CD, Morgan and his longtime co-producer O'Donnell added a third man to the mix with uberproducer Keith Stegall - best known for his work with Alan Jackson and Terri Clark - joining them behind the board. Morgan says Stegall brought his "experience and an ear for great songs" to the recording process.
For the first time with "Little Bit of Life," Morgan feels like he's closely captured the sound and energy of his live shows on a CD. Vocally, he said, "I really opened up" in the studio, resulting in an album that's "a lot more me and a lot more relaxed. After doing this for a while, you get a little more comfortable and confident."
"There's nothing more rewarding as an artist and more discouraging as a producer than to have people come out (to shows) and say, 'You're even better live than your record.' I just want people to hear on the record what they hear live," Morgan said. "We try not to manipulate in the studio too much. When you go to tweaking and changing and tightening and cleaning you take away from the personality that's in the vocal."
Morgan has been invited to perform at the legendary Grand Ole Opry more than 150 times in his career. He also frequently performs at military bases both in the U.S. and abroad, saying he remembers how much those visits from entertainers meant to him during his 10 years on active duty.