Garth Gives Memorabilia to Smithsonian

Garth Brooks photo by Mark Tucker, courtesy of Pearl Records.

December 3, 2007 — Garth Brooks has donated objects representing his musical career to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Among them are his first gold record and cassette for the 1989 album Garth Brooks; handwritten lyric sheets for the song "Beaches of Cheyenne," showing his revisions; a Takamine brand guitar he smashed during his first TV special; elements of a typical stage outfit, including a Mo' Betta shirt, black Wrangler jeans, black elephant-skin cowboy boots, a belt and a black Stetson Tyler cowboy hat with a label on the interior brim reading "made especially for Garth Brooks."

The museum will also collect the plaque Garth received in November from the Recording Industry Association America as the top-selling solo artist in recorded history with 123 million albums sold.

A selection from the collection will be on temporary display in the museum's Treasures of American History exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum beginning in January 2008. The exhibition includes the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Kermit the Frog, Lincoln's top hat, the Lewis and Clark compass, General Custer's jacket, the Greensboro lunch counter, Thomas Jefferson's Bible and Thomas Edison's light bulb.

In other news, a series of concerts Garth is giving to raise money for victims of recent wildfires in Southern California sold out in less than an hour Saturday, according to Garth's website, garthbrooks.com.

The 85,677 tickets for five concerts sold for about $45 each, raising $3.8 million to aid fire victims and provide equipment funding for fire departments around the state. The shows will be held in January at Los Angeles' Staples Center.