Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Garth Brooks: The Road I’m On’ On Netflix And A&E, A Docuseries About The Country Legend’s Rocket To Megastardom (2024)

When I worked at Sam Goody during my college years, they coincided with Garth Brooks’ breakout years, 1989-91. Despite working in Hudson County, NJ, definitely not country territory, it blew my mind how many of Brooks’ CDs and cassettes the store sold. He seemed like just your average-looking dude in a striped shirt from Aeropostale, jeans and a huge cowboy hat. But, when you give Brooks a good listen, and you see him perform in front of stadium-sized crowds, you get it. In December, A&E aired a 2-partBiography-branded documentary about Brooks’ life and career. It landed on Netflix this week; is it worth close to 3 hours of your time?

GARTH BROOKS: THE ROAD I’M ON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In Nashville, Garth Brooks and his band are rehearsing for his 2019 stadium tour.

The Gist: Garth Brooks: The Road I’m Onis a 2-part docuseries that details the life of the star that, at one time, was the best-selling solo artist of all-time. To be sure, Garth Brooks has had a storied career, which started with him mesmerizing bar crowds in Stillwater, Oklahoma, with his ability to sing, play the guitar and cover songs from many different genres. By the time the ’80s were over, he was well on his way to becoming a megastar not only in country music, but the music business in general.

The first part of the series, which originally aired on A&E in December under the Biography rubric, shows Brooks and his longtime band rehearsing for the massive tour he undertook in 2019 as well as footage from some of the first shows. But it mostly concentrates on the early part of his life and career. Brooks was the youngest child in a blended family from Yukon, Oklahoma, that had six kids. His mother had been a singer signed to Capitol Records, who volunteered to give up her burgeoning career to raise her kids. His father was a tough but fair man, who taught Garth lessons about leaving an impression, even when you shake someone’s hand.

Two of Garth’s brothers recall how talented Garth was, even at a young age, and when he went to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, he often played the dive bars and honky-tonks in town, and started to attract buzz. He continued to do that after he got his degree, and when fans of his got together some money so Garth could try his hand in Nashville, he went, only to return to Stillwater a day later because he realized how difficult it was to make it there, and that he just wasn’t ready.

By the time he did get to Nashville, however, he was married to his first wife, Sandy, and they lived in a small house with the rest of the band Garth was with. The band soon broke up, Garth found out that his college-graduate wife couldn’t fill out a job application, and they both ended up working as booze salespeople while Garth played places like the Bluebird Cafe hoping to latch onto a label. When Capitol, who had rejected him along with every other label in town when he and his manager Bob Doyle, saw him play live at the Bluebird — he went on in place of someone else who was showcasing for labels, but didn’t show up — he was signed. That was 1988. By the time his third album,Ropin’ The Wind, was the first country album to debut at the top of the Billboard album chart in 1991, Brooks was the biggest recording artist in the world.

Our Take: I’m wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy Garth Brooks: The Road I’m On when I got the assignment to review it. For one, I’m not a huge fan of Brooks’ music, and never have been. Second, each episode was close to 90 minutes long, in straightforward Biography style: archival footage, talking head interviews, etc. My experience at Sam Goody, though, showed me that Brooks’ appeal crossed over from country in a way that hadn’t happened since Kenny Rogers did so a a decade or so earlier. So what fascinated me about the docuseries was that it was going to be a look into how and why Brooks became such a huge success, and, of course, some of the unexpected turns he steered his career into after the period of his greatest success.

Brooks is, of course, the main interview subject, and his manner seems sometimes rehearsed and polished, like when he uses the line “I felt like I met my wife” the first time he recorded with Trisha Yearwood in 1987, just over a year after he married Sandy. Of course, we all know that Brooks and Yearwood would eventually get married, but not after he and Sandy divorced and he “retired” to spend more time with his kids in 2000. But the forthrightness that both he and Yearwood talk about how strong their chemistry was, despite each of them being married to others, was refreshing.

Also refreshing: extensive use of an interview with Sandy Mahl, Brooks’ ex-wife. She talks about their early life together back in Stillwater without a hint of malice, and then also talks about how his massive success, which put him on the road almost the entire year, put a strain on their marriage. The most shocking moment is how they each recalled the incident where Sandy said she couldn’t fill out a job application; she said they pulled over into a fire station because Garth was so frustrated with his career struggles, while Garth said something completely different.

One thing that Brooks has always been, despite his success, is human. Humble? Somewhat. Confident? Absolutely. And he shows all of that in this documentary, including a couple of vulnerable moments, like when he couldn’t talk about his father’s response to Brooks’ quick return from Nashville. As the second part delves into his divorce, his retirement, his reconnection with Yearwood and his comeback, it should be fascinating to show that, even with success and untold riches, a guy like Garth Brooks can have the strength to step back when he knows his life isn’t going the way he wants it to go.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Sandy: “I don’t think either of us stopped to think how it [the fame] would change our lives.”

Sleeper Star: All the songwriters who penned Brooks’ early megahits, like “The Dance” and “The Thunder Rolls,” tell some fascinating tales about how those songs came about.

Most Pilot-y Line: Like I said, sometimes Brooks comes off a bit polished and rehearsed, but that might just be his manner. He is one intense, determined dude.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Even thoughGarth Brooks: The Road I’m On is almost 3 hours, it’s a fascinating look at how Brooks’ seemingly unlikely mega success isn’t as unlikely as you think, even if he considers himself pretty darn lucky.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

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