Dierks Bentley's greatest hits album due next month could likely be one of the most interesting projects out of Nashville this year.
Consider:
Five years.
Ten hits.
Three-thousand executive producers.
And all of those producers will be listed by name in the liner notes.
Confused?
Let's back up a bit.
Bentley, the 32-year-old Phoenix native, wanted to reflect on his first five years in the country music business. But he didn't want to simply shuffle out a quasi-greatest hits album with a smattering of ballads and party songs.
He wanted it to be special,so he asked his fans to recommend everything from the hits he would include to the artwork.
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Three-thousand fans responded. Bentley even let them name it: "Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory 2003-2008," due May 6.
"We wouldn't have this success and these radio hits without them," Bentley said last week from his tour bus outside Jackson, Tenn.
Bentley slapped each of their names on the liner notes under the title "executive producer."
"It's a lot of names, a lot of names," he said in the smooth baritone heard in such ballads as "Settle for a Slowdown" and "Every Mile a Memory."
"I get a kick out of it, and I think they're going to get the biggest kick out of it ever."
Bentley agrees that a greatest-hits album after five years might seem premature, but "the truth of the matter is that every song we've put out has done really well on radio," he said.
The disc also lets him consider the next five years of what he hopes will be a long career.
"Hopefully, (I'll keep) writing great songs and putting out great music," he said. "More of the same, and, to be honest, the same's pretty good. I'm really enjoying the same."
