Country star Travis Tritt is going after more platinum with the release of ”Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man,” which boasts vocal help from such varied country stars as George Jones, Porter Wagoner, Tanya Tucker, T. Graham Brown, Little Texas and Brooks & Dunn.
The single, which is being tied into get-out-the-vote efforts, is the first burst from his brand-new third album, ”T-r-o-u-b-l-e,” whose title song is a cover of the Elvis Presley single from the 1970s.
”It wasn`t one of his biggest singles,” Tritt notes, ”but it`s always been one of my favorite Elvis songs.”
The album is getting one of the most distinctive introductions to the marketplace in memory. On Wednesday, the night following its release, Tritt will perform its songs along with his vintage hits at the Park West in Chicago, where the show will be captured by TV cameras and satellited into a host of other nightclubs in major cities across America.
They include Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
Reportedly, the Park West appearance will kick off the most expensive promotional campaign ever mounted by Warner Bros. Records for a country album, with Tritt and his manager, Ken Kragen, agreeing to match the Warner outlay.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, Tritt will make his acting debut in a CBS-TV movie, ”Rio Diablo,” on which filming is to begin Sept. 14. He will costar with Kenny Rogers.
”I`ve always wanted to try my hand at acting, and I can`t think of anyone I`d rather work with than Kenny Rogers,” Tritt says. ”The fact that this script is so good and is also a western, it got my attention
immediately.”
In the production, to be filmed along the Rio Grande in the Southwest, Tritt plays a young man who teams with a crusty bounty hunter portrayed by Rogers and goes after a gang of outlaws. A brief but reportedly meaty role will be played by another considerable country music name, Naomi Judd.
