Country Music Stars TTM Successes

Back in the 1990’s I wrote country music stars Alan Jackson, Wynonna Judd, Dwight Yoakam, and Mary Chapin Carpenter to praise their music, and ask them for an autograph photo. Naïve at how such things worked I expected them to provide me a signed photo and paid for postage to send it me. Well they were not so accommodating. Alan and Wynonna sent me letter thanking me for my letter and offering me a chance to buy an autographed photo for $3. Dwight said I had to join his fan club in order to get an autographed photo. My letter to Mary Chapin came back RTS and I never found another good address to send it to.

I did get my autographed photos from Alan, Wynonna, and joined Dwight’s fan club for a year. The photos were very nice looking, and I still have the Alan and Dwight photos framed and on display in my house.

Now well over a decade later I decided to write some of my favorite country artist again. Using my experience with sending baseball cards to players to sign, I created my own country music star baseball cards to send. Knowing that the bigger the star, the less likely I was to get a response, I choose four older artists whom I had enjoyed. Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Clint Black, and Travis Tritt were a major part of the 90’s country boom, but only Alan is still a major commercial force.

I sent cards out to all four. I got one of them back quickly. Unfortunately it was a RTS from Vince Gill. I had the wrong address. I am still searching for a better one to send it to though I think I am on to something.

39 days after I sent all four out, my first success arrived and it was ALAN JACKSON! I must admit I was surprised. He is still very popular and though he probably can’t match Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood in the amount of mail they get, he still must get plenty. That said he did sign a card for me and even personalizing it. Thank you Alan Jackson!

I hope to send out more to the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Pam Tillis, Brooks & Dunn, and others. I loved 1989-1995 country music and most the artists from that time period are more apt to sign as they are not getting as much fan mail as they use to, and they understand they must work maintain the fan base they have now in order to be able to keep making a living making music.

I will avoid the big stars of today like Carrie, Taylor, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, and Sugarland as they are less likely to sign due to the volume of mail they get. I will also avoid Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire. I can’t find anywhere to send the Garth item to making me think he has stopped signing autographs. I have read on multiple Web sites that people who have gotten a response from Reba have gotten pre-printed autographed items meaning the items like a picture were created with autograph already on them. She actually never signs them. I find that surprising as in her early career Reba signed a lot of things. Evidently her priorities have changed.

I will try and post updates here on my successes. I will also work harder and updating my baseball, hockey, and football successes as well.