From Ingram's "Lips" to the country spotlight

05/04/2007 8:48 PM, Reuters
Phyllis Stark

"I'm just an old chunk of coal/but I'm going to be a diamond someday," Jack Ingram sings in an expansive rehearsal studio on New York's West Side.

The song, in many ways, is a perfect fit for the 36-year-old musician. "Old Chunk of Coal" was penned by Billy Joe Shaver, who helped shape the Texas country scene where Ingram cut his teeth.

But a different cover has helped propel Ingram further into the spotlight -- his take on Hinder's "Lips of an Angel."

Most of all, though, "Old Chunk of Coal" fits because these really are, finally, Ingram's diamond days.

After a dozen years, nine albums and the jump from indie label to major to indie, Ingram is celebrating commercial success on the airwaves, on the charts, at concerts and with sales.

"I think what's been most important is that I'm on the right label," Ingram says. After releasing a pair of albums independently in the mid-'90s, he signed with Warner Bros., then shuffled to Sony's Lucky Dog imprint. In 2006, he found his label home in Scott Borchetta's Big Machine Records.

"I wasn't anybody's real priority before, and part of that is because I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't understand at the time that I wanted to be on the radio."

And on the radio he is. So far, four cuts from Ingram's recently released (and appropriately titled) "This Is It" have made their way onto Billboard's Hot Country Songs tally: "Wherever You Are" crowned the chart last year; tongue-in-cheek "Love You" reached No. 12; "Lips of an Angel" peaked at No. 16 (and at No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100); and current single "Measure of a Man" is No. 43. The album bowed at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 the week of April 14 and has sold 63,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Helping to increase sales and spins is country radio's still-growing affinity for country with a rock edge, which exploded with the popularity of superstar artists like Keith Urban, Dierks Bentley and Brad Paisley -- the last of whom Ingram recently hit the road with. The tour, which kicked off April 26, is slated to run through August 23.

"It's because I've got songs like 'Lips of an Angel' that my record sold more in its first week than the total sales of the record before it," Ingram says. "It's rock songs with twang and slide, or whatever. It's whatever this trend is that's allowed me to walk through the door at last."

Reuters/Billboard