Check out Garth in his WalMart blue smock!

Among his hits country music star Garth Brooks sang at the June 3 Wal-Mart shareholders meeting in Fayetteville was 'Friends in Low Places.' It may turn out that Brooks also has friends in high places at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville. Brooks, now supposedly retired, made a surprise announcement at the meeting that he had terminated his longtime contract with EMI Capitol in Nashville, Tenn. Then Doug Degn, executive vice president of merchandising for Wal-Mart, joined Brooks on stage to offer him a job and hand him a blue Wal-Mart smock. "I just got hired by Wal-Mart and Sam's (Club), if you know what I mean," Brooks said after Degn left the stage. It didn't take long for rumors to start that Brooks was making some kind of deal with Wal-Mart. "You had to be asleep not to figure something big was afoot," said Gilliam Co., a business advisory firm in New York, in its shareholders report. "We don't know anything more than was presented at the meeting, but Garth reminded everyone that he had been welcomed by Wal-Mart people early in his career and that Wal-Mart was responsible for the sale of 25 percent of his recordings." Brooks' publicist, Nancy Seltzer in Los Angeles, wouldn't confirm or deny the rumors. "At this moment in time, there is no deal in place. Garth talks to so many people about so many things. I think it's premature to read anything (into Brooks' remarks). But, stay tuned. You never know," she said Tuesday. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk said the company "had nothing to share" about the Brooks rumors. Scott Stem, a spokesman for the Country Music Association in Nashville, said he wasn't aware of Brooks signing anything with Wal-Mart but thought "it was a fun little rumor, and you never know." "Country music stars sell a lot of records through Wal-Mart and have attended its shareholders meetings," he said. Gilliam said in its Wal-Mart shareholders report that having Brooks there was a "major coup and to have him as a company spokesman will be a super coup." "And we suspect that Wal-Mart has something much bigger in mind." Wednesday, June 22, 2005 Anita French The Morning News.

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