Gretchen Wilson Takes a Big Chance With Personally Financed New Record

Gretchen Wilson is risking it all with her new single and album.

Gretchen told an interviewer at her farmhouse, “I feel like pretty much everything is at stake.”

That statement makes a lot of sense. Wilson has left her major record label and now she’s striking out to sell records with her own label, Redneck Records.

Wilson and Sony had a successful 5 years together. 6.2 million records have been sold under the Gretchen Wilson name and probably a few hundred thousand more shipped to retail stores. More will probably be sold over the next few years and Wilson has hoards of fans that continue to buy her music. And there are always new fans that come along and discover great country music.

Now, Wilson has released her first album on Redneck Records, I Got Your Country Right Here.

She says she’s back on her way with hard-rocking country songs that connect with her core audience.

The first single is Work Hard, Play Harder. It’s an uptempo tune in the same vein as her first few singles. And fans seem to be loving it. The single is in the top 30 on the country singles chart and climbing. Depending on the marketing power of her new label the song may be on its way to the top 20 and possibly even the top 10.

The album has sold around 50,000 copies so far and hopefully will be on the way to breaking even and keeping Wilson relevant so she can continue selling concert tickets.

As often happens with music artists, they don’t see much if any money from record sales. Most take home cash comes from constant touring. Fans pay big bucks to see their favorite stars live.

The necessary evil is having a record label to market and make the artists stars so they can sell tons of tickets. And the labels need the stars to tour and work to promote themselves and sell tons of records (so the labels make money for their investment).

Here’s hoping Gretchen finds success on her own as others before here have on their own labels like Toby Keith.