Tim McGraw photo by Danny Clinch, courtesy of Curb Records.

After Tim McGraw earned his first hit 15 years ago with the novelty “Indian Outlaw,” he took a 180-degree turn with his next single by releasing the almost-morbid ballad “Don’t Take The Girl.”

That approach has since become a minor signature in his career: Tim followed the pleading ballad “Please Remember Me” with the playful “Something Like That”; balanced the heavy message of “Live Like You Were Dying” with the goofy wordplay of the next single, “Back When”; and contrasted last December’s alcohol-fueled “Nothin’ To Die For” with the flip follow-up “It’s A Business Doing Pleasure With You.”

He is, he told The Washington Post, “very manic” in some ways, which explains a resume of hits that runs the gamut from “Angry All The Time” to “I Like It, I Love It.”

“That’s why I don’t drink anymore,” he told The Post. “I had to go to the outer margins. That’s where everything happens to me, on the fringes of your life… That’s where all the juicy stuff is going on.”

After a long wait, Tim releases his new Southern Voice album on Tuesday. It has its share of weighty topics — including suicide and the loss of a parent — as Tim tries to challenge his fans.

“There’s a lot of music and a lot of people out there who can tell you how they feel,” he said. “But if you can tell somebody how they feel and they didn’t realize it until you told them, then you’ve got something.”

Next month, Tim will have yet another project with a heavy vibe in the marketplace. The Blind Side, a movie about a homeless Memphis kid taken in by a wealthy couple, appears in theaters Nov. 20. The picture has Faith Hill’s real-life husband playing the on-screen mate of Sandra Bullock.

You can preview the tracks, watch exclusive interview clips and more with Tim McGraw in his artist section right here at GACTV.com.  Click here »

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