McGraw feels rejuvenated with ‘Sundown Heaven Town’

When Tim McGraw went on tour in summer 2011, he had already completed his next album, “Emotional Traffic,” and in fact had named his outing the “Emotional Traffic” tour.

This summer, McGraw is taking a page from that playbook, calling his road trip the “Sundown Heaven Town” tour, a nod to his next studio album. The tour comes to Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood this Sunday.

A big difference this time is that the “Sundown Heaven Town” tour doesn’t have the element of protest or uncertainty that the “Emotional Traffic” project had.

This time, McGraw knows that the “Sundown Heaven Town” CD will be released in September.

A release date for “Emotional Traffic” was something McGraw didn’t have when he went on tour in summer 2011.

McGraw’s label at the time, Curb Records, had decided to put “Emotional Traffic” on the shelf and instead release a McGraw best-of album, “Number One Hits,” in November 2010.

McGraw had adamantly opposed the release of “Number One Hits,” noting it was the fourth greatest hits collection and offered little that was new to his fans.

The dispute eventually boiled over into lawsuits from both sides. McGraw won a major victory in November 2011 when a judge granted McGraw permission to record for another label. Curb released “Emotional Traffic” in January 2012, only a few months before McGraw signed with Big Machine Records and went to work on his next studio album, “Two Lanes of Freedom.”

“Sundown Heaven Town” is set to arrive on Sept. 16 — less than 18 months after “Two Lanes of Freedom” was released. There are good reasons why the two albums are happening in quick succession.

For one thing, the albums reflect a rejuvenation for McGraw. In fact, he has compared “Two Lanes of Freedom” to his fourth studio album, 1997’s “Everywhere,” which is widely considered the album on which McGraw came into his own as a country star.

“I went into record ‘Everywhere,’ and it was the first album that I was putting my name on as producer and I felt like I had that energy,” McGraw said in a recent phone interview. “I felt like I had weaved myself (through) sort of the land mines a little bit where I felt like free to just make music. I sort of felt that way with ‘Two Lanes of Freedom,’ and this album (‘Sundown Heaven Town’) sort of just really extended that for me.”

Not wanting the enthusiasm he felt in making “Two Lanes of Freedom” and then touring that album to fade, McGraw didn’t pause before going to work on what became “Sundown Heaven Town.”

“We came right off of the tour and went back into the studio,” he said. “We just really had this sort of renewed sense of purpose and drive and importance in what we were doing. I think as an artist, part of what you do is you feel important about what you do, about your music. It counts and it matters to you, and that’s what it feels like to me right now.”

Fans have gotten a couple of tastes of “Sundown Heaven Town” already. A first single, “Lookin’ for That Girl,” was released in January. Now a second song from the album, “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s,” has been released.

The earthy ballad about family and the familiarity and comfort of home finds McGraw’s wife, Faith Hill, joining him on vocals.

“I just thought that Faith would bring a warmth to the song,” McGraw said. “She’s such a great singer, but she brings such emotion when she sings a song and such soul to it, that I think that instantly, the subject matter, what it’s about, and when you hear us sing together and you certainly hear her voice, it just instantly hits that nerve.”

The two singles won’t be the only songs from “Sundown Heaven Town” in his live set, McGraw said.

“I love being able to go out and do a tour and play a lot of new music that no one’s heard before to prepare them for what’s coming on the album,” he said. “So it’s a little different than everybody knowing the stuff and hearing it. And for us, it’s that way, too, because it’s always cool to get the reaction of people when they hear a song they’ve never heard before. And if they like it instantly, you can tell.”