Garth Brooks’ New Album Features a Song By Craig Campbell

Craig Campbell is a prolific songwriter; he wrote six of the 12 songs on his latest 'Never Regret' album. But while he is quite talented at penning songs, he's been the only one to record any of his tunes, until now. Country music superstar Garth Brooks' new album, 'Man Against Machine,' features one of Campell's songs, 'All-American Kid.'

“I’ve never had another artist record any of my songs, which I think a lot of people don’t know,” Campbell tells Country Weekly. “I write for myself, of course, but I’ve never had an outside cut. For the first one to be Garth, well, that's pretty amazing. He probably listens to thousands of songs.”

The song, which Campbell co-wrote with Brice Long and Terry McBride, struck a nerve with Brooks.

“We’re lucky enough to travel around the world playing music, but the first thing I’ll tell anybody [is] … ‘Hey dude, I’m American.’ I’m not gonna to change to fit your format. We’re not going to lose the steels, we’re not going to lose the fiddles. We’re going to do what we do. And that’s country music with muscle in it,” Brooks says. “And I gotta tell ya, ‘All-American Kid’ is exactly that, just Garth Brooks country music with a hell of a lot of muscle.”

Campbell got to meet his musical hero last month, when Brooks invited him to preview the album in Nashville.

"He’s so cool," Campbell says. “He’s everything I ever imagined from hearing people talk about him. I just found him to be a real down-to-earth guy. He’s a great human being that does a lot for others."

Campbell is putting the finishing touches on a new album, which will be released on a brand-new label, after his former label, Bigger Picture, unexpectedly closed earlier this year.

Download 'Man Against Machine' on Brooks' own GhostTunes here.