"I want this album to create a place," says Blake Shelton. "I want (Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill) to create a bar or an old café and I want (listeners) to go there when they hear it. I want it to be the album (you) go to when you feel good that day; just relax, kickback and go on through lots of different emotions and at the end of it just have a good feeling."

The notion of having a good feeling probably stems from the fact that Blake's feeling pretty good about everything in his life. An unassuming guy (his parents have long since taught him there's nothing in life you can take for granted) with rather simple needs (he yearns for the nights spent sitting in his barn, drinking beer and listening to his CB radio), he's feeling pretty good about his personal and professional life.

Shortly after marrying his longtime girlfriend last fall, he started work on the new album (his third for Warner Bros.) with friend and frequent collaborator Bobby Braddock. The two went out to dinner one night to talk about the forthcoming project, but wound up spending the evening chatting about a list of Blake's favorite songs and his heroes, the likes of which included George Jones and Merle Haggard.

"I don't know how to put it, but they were drinking songs," he recalls. "They were songs that you hear in a bar. Some of them were country standards that everybody knows and some of them weren't, but they had the same feel. I said, 'man, I want to make a record that from start to finish could be played on a juke box somewhere and not seem out of place.'"

Although he may not have fully realized it that night Blake wanted to record an album that actually more closely resembled his own simple life and the varied emotions that everyone can relate to and identify with.

A collection of 11 songs capturing lost loves and an uncertain future, Blake Shelton's Barn & Grill provides listeners with far more than a jukebox of drinking tunes. Instead, it plays out more like a series of conversations in a small town diner or a neighborhood bar filled with regulars.

"It really is that place. I can picture every person in every conversation in this bar when I listen to the album and it doesn't make me want to jump up and do the flash dance and it doesn't make me cry when it's over. It just makes me content with myself at that moment. Just kickback, drink a beer and have fun listening to it."

In conceiving the place Blake envisioned he and Bobby enlisted a team of Nashville songsmiths whose work the pair was already familiar with. There was Harley Allen, who wrote The Bartender and teamed with Jimmy Melton to pen When Somebody Knows You That Well, Roger Murrah and James Dean Hicks (Goodbye Time) and then there was Paul Overstreet, who teamed with Even Stevens to create the playfully naughty Cotton Pickin' Time and Rory Lee Frank to write Blake's current single, the lighthearted and catchy, Some Beach.

"I'm starting to become an artist instead of the guy who can sing all kinds of songs," Blake explains. "I'm starting to see that and hone in on that and this album is an indication of what that is. I don't know, ultimately, what kind of artist I'll be, but at least I'm starting to see the road that I'm headed down."

"It's a dirt road," he laughs. "The road I'm headed down now probably avoids all major cities and all metropolitan areas. It's just an old forgotten highway that goes through towns that are drying up and gas stations that are closed down, but they're peaceful. It's a simple life. I go to it more every day for some reason. It's off the beaten path and one day I'll look back and see where I've been."

Blake moved to Nashville when he was merely 17, released his debut album in July of 2001 and immediately scored his first No. 1 hit, Austin, that same month. As a result Radio & Records magazine named him Breakthrough Artist of 2001 as well as being heralded by critics (Music Row magazine) and acknowledged by fans (Country Weekly). Blake's self-titled debut spawned yet another recognizable hit, the picturesque Ol' Red, and year to the day after the album was released it was certified gold.

Avoiding the so-called sophomore jinx the first single, The Baby, from his second album The Dreamer, went to the top of the singles chart for three weeks and fans helped propel the video for Heavy Liftin' to the No. 1 spot on GAC's weekly Top 20 Country Countdown.

This time, however, Blake readily admits that he's less concerned with radio charts and more concerned with clearly defining who he is as a country music artist. "I just wanted to make an album that I can listen to and be happy with when I'm 50 years old," Blake admits, "and still be happy with it even if nobody gets to hear it. Things happen for a reason. The only thing that matters to me is being remembered for having great songs."

"Somebody can always find something about me to really like or hate, but lets keep all that stuff aside and make it about country music because that's all it's about to me. I don't know what the future holds, but my goal is to be doing this 20 years from now."