John Rich photo by Frank Ockenfels, courtesy of Warner Bros. Nashville.

In late 2008, John Rich took an active role in John McCain’s presidential push, authoring the campaign’s theme song “Raisin’ McCain,” playing numerous events during the Republican National Convention and performing with Hank Williams Jr. at McCain’s election-night soiree in Arizona.

John stayed with public issues, even after the votes were tallied. He performed “Shuttin’ Detroit Down” at a tea party in Atlanta, sang at a pro-coal Labor Day rally in West Virginia, played a November fundraiser for a Conservative Party candidate in Watertown, N.Y., and even hosted an event last weekend at his house for Republican Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Zach Wamp.

Tuesday, he hit the road again to campaign for a Republican candidate in Alabama.

“This is different for me,” John told The Montgomery Advertiser, “because I don’t live here.”

But he told the crowd that he’d want Tim James (the candidate — not the songwriter behind Trace Adkins’ “All I Ask For Anymore”) to be his governor if he did reside there. Then John played five songs for the visitors in Cloverdale, including “I Walk The Line,” “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy).”

It makes for a seemingly weird relationship between John and his Big & Rich musical partner, Big Kenny Alphin. Big Kenny has openly railed against the mountain-top mining that coal companies pursue in West Virginia and other states, and he wore an Obama pin when he was recently interviewed by The Tennessean.

Big Kenny, who’s travelled twice to the Sudan to aid forgotten residents who’ve been devastated by a civil war, recently released his own solo project, The Quiet Times Of A Rock And Roll Farm Boy. Big & Rich’s separate solo work has all the hallmarks of the classic popular-music breakup story — especially when you factor in their obvious differences as people. But Big & Rich continue to maintain that it’s only a temporary split while they pursue other stuff that’s unique to their individual makeup.

“Leaving something that’s a given thing is always hard,” Big Kenny told The Tennessean. “I’m going my own way, doing my own thing — I couldn’t do it with anybody else. John’s life this time was in another place, and I was in another place. I had this stuff that I had to speak, and he had his things he has to speak, and it’s a really good thing.”

The guys toured together this past summer, even after John had released his Son Of A Preacher Man album and while Big Kenny was still finalizing his CD. There’s no timetable for their next collaborative album — or the campaign that would support it. Wish the rest of the red state/blue state rivals got along as well as these two guys seem to.

ShareThis