25 Years Ago: Garth Brooks and George Jones Spar Over “Beer Run”

Garth Brooks has never been a stranger to controversy in his career, no matter how affable he’s tried to come across, and how much he’s attempted to keep his nose clean. And really, no matter what Garth Brooks does, when you’re at the top of the heap, it’s often the case that many are trying to knock you down. It’s easy to razz on Garth, because despite his popularity, he’s always afforded many opportunities to do so.

One of the most controversial songs in Garth’s career was also one of his most simple and silly ones. “Beer Run (B-Double E-Double Are You In?)” off of his 2001 album Scarecrow was supposed to be the lighthearted moment of the record. And for the most part, it was. Garth didn’t write the song. It was the work of long-time Garth collaborator Kent Blazy, along with co-writers George Ducas, and Kim and Amanda Williams.

The song was also supposed to be one of the most magnanimous moments of Garth’s career, because he chose to record it as a duet with the legendary George Jones. Similar to Alan Jackson at the time who also championed Jones, Garth was using his celebrity to try and help elevate an aging legend. Along with the song appearing on Scarecrow, “Beer Run” also appeared on the 2001 George Jones album The Rock: Stone Cold Country, released on September 11th, 2001 (yes, that 9/11).

Despite the good intentions, the release of “Beer Run” caused quite a stir, and for a couple of reasons. The first and most well-known was not with George Jones, but with alt-country East Nashville songwriter Todd Snider. Garth’s Scarecrow album came out on November 13th, 2001. Todd’s album New Connection came out in May of 2002. It also happened to include a song called “Beer Run” that was eerily similar to Garth’s. Though Snider’s version officially came out later than Garth’s, Todd had been performing the song live previously.

“I’m sitting at home, watching television and my manager calls me up and says, ‘Hey man, you know that song “Beer Run” you came up with?” Todd Snider recalls. “‘Well there’s a different version of the song that’s almost exactly like it that Garth Brooks is singing with George Jones, and I think you might have got ripped off.’”

As Todd Snider tells the story, he didn’t even care about the issue, until… “[My manager] calls me a few months later and it’s a different twist on this story. He says, ‘Now they’re saying you took it from them.’”

Subsequently, the two “Beer Run” sides met, and decided amicably that nobody took anything from anybody, and everyone went back about their business …. until Todd Snider was asked to play the induction ceremony for Tom T. Hall at the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. During the ceremony, someone pointed out Kent Blazy to Todd in the crowd as the man who wrote Garth’s song “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” not knowing it was the same guy who wrote the contested “Beer Run.” So Todd Snider, being a fan of “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” walks over and introduces himself to Kent.

“I know who you are, I got in a lot of trouble last summer with you man.” Todd recalls Kent Blazy saying to him. “You wrote ‘Beer Run’, right? I wrote it too.”

“And I’m thinking in my head, ‘You took it from me!‘” Todd remembers. “And you know what he said to me? He said, ‘Not technically, man.’ And he explained to me the rules about how many words you can take and how many notes you can take, and I thought, ‘That’s some clever shit.’ And as he was walking away from me, I got an idea for a song.

Todd Snider subsequently recorded his own song called “If Tomorrow Never Comes.”

But it turns out that was not the end of the controversy for “Beer Run.” 25 years ago this week in the run up to the 2001 CMA Awards, a publicist working for George Jones named Evelyn Shriver decided to reach out to the local Nashville newspaper The Tennessean, and tell them that George Jones was not particularly happy with Garth Brooks. When Garth recorded his version of “Beer Run” with George Jones, he promised the country legend it was going to be a single, and they would perform it on an awards show together.

Instead, Garth Brooks selected “Wrapped Up In You” as the lead single from the album Scarecrow, and never ended up releasing “Beer Run” as a proper single at all—perhaps because of the controversy already swirling around the song with Todd Snider.

Five days after the original story was published about the supposed disappointment of George Jones in The Tennessean about “Beer Run,” Garth Brooks reached out to the newspaper and supplied some quotes of his own, specifically accusing publicist Evelyn Shriver of exploiting a car wreck George Jones was in two years previous to try and sell copies of George’s 1999 album Cold Hard Truth.

Mere days before the 2001 CMA Awards were set to transpire on November 7th, the back and forth playing out in the Nashville newspaper was stirring all manner of Music Row gossip and controversy, and it looked like Garth Brooks might come out like the villain once again by not showing ol’ George Jones the respect he deserved, and breaking his promise.

That’s when Garth called an audible, and made it all go away. He decided to fulfill his promise to George Jones, and the two performed “Beer Run” on the 2001 CMA Awards instead of Garth’s current single, “Wrapped Up In You.”

Perhaps if it wasn’t for George Jones publicist Evelyn Shriver calling out Garth Brooks publicly, George Jones would have never received the opportunity. But either way, this was one controversy with a happy ending. George Jones got his wish, and got on stage at the CMA Awards, and with a current superstar, even if the song they sung still had questionable origins, at least according to Todd Snider.

For Garth’s part, he remained loyal and respectful to George Jones all the way up to George’s death in 2013. On the day George Jones passed, Garth Brooks recalled the day they recorded “Beer Run” together, saying, “I think I can describe that day: it was the least I’ve ever been pissed off at getting out-sung. It was an honor to get my ass kicked that day.”

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