The rise of the MuzikMafia: 20 years ago, Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson stormed Nashville

The commercial music industry was upended two decades ago, when a redneck woman learned how to save a horse and ride a cowboy.

The story is neither that ribald nor straightforward. But the meteoric rise of the so-called MuzikMafia represents one of the most and unexpected and memorable chapter's in country music's modern history. The unlikely crew, consisting of "Big" Kenny Alphin, John Rich and Gretchen Wilson (alongside their Dallas-based rap associate Cowboy Troy) pumped out a series of hits leading to sales of 10 million albums at a time when downloading music via iTunes or cellular telephone ring tunes was on the rise.

Twenty years later, the MuzikMafia is embarking on a nationwide, "celebration" anniversary tour.

"The MuzikMafia made cohesive, focused bodies of work featuring our best, most connective songs on each album," Rich told The Tennessean during a recent Zoom call.

"Music should want to make fans take a full, emotional journey — we were from literally the last era that truly understood how commercially successful those journeys could become," added Alphin.

The MuzikMafia's origin story

At the turn of the 21st century, Alphin and Rich were in career rebounds as Music City singer-songwriters.

The former was previously signed, then dropped by Hollywood Records.

In a 2000 Nashville Scene feature, Big Kenny is described as a "financially compensated and overly prolific songwriter playing three-hour shows focused a little bit more on the good things in life" as the lead singer of hard-gigging Nashville rock act luvjOi.

Comparatively, John Rich noted in a 2022 interview that in the same era, he was "failing miserably and flying under the radar" as a solo act after being fired from eventual Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers Lonestar.

"They fired me, but for good reason," he said. "I was a lot younger than the other band members and quite frankly a good bit cantankerous. Like many bands, we had a few differences in opinions."

As for Wilson, the native of Pocahontas, Illinois, (population roughly 800 in 2000) was a self-described "little girl with a big voice" whose work resonated best with songs in Patsy Cline's or Loretta Lynn's catalogs. When she met Alphin and Rich, she was approaching nearly two decades of singing songs and tending bars in both Pocahontas and at Music City's Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar in Printer's Alley.

The Pub of Love

Because Alphin and Rich were independent artists with song publishing deals, they began working together (Rich often opened for luvjOi at Nashville's 12th and Porter) and pitching songs around town.

Notably, Rich himself first cut "Amarillo Sky," a song they paired to write with Rodney Clawson and Bart Pursley.

It's the same "Amarillo Sky" that Jason Aldean released in 2006, which later became a top-10-selling country hit.

Alphin's roommate and musician John Nicholson, Rich's friend Wilson, and even Cowboy Troy, a rapper Rich had met while Lonestar was on tour in Dallas in 1993 (who was driving back and forth from Dallas to Nashville in attempts at jump-starting his "hick-hop" rap career), pooled their resources. On Tuesday nights, they began to throw a songwriting round at The Pub of Love, a tiny and dingy standing-room-only venue above 12th and Porter.

"People were eventually slammed in there," said Wilson.

Rich and Alphin eventually graduated from discussion forum posts to trading MySpace messages about bands they wanted to invite to the venue, as the internet's traffic and influence was growing exponentially.

The fast rise of the internet impacted musical tastes, too.

"Rap, R&B, and soul music plus urban radio became a huge influence on everything," added Rich, offering that though those influences had yet to synergize with Nashville's then-mainstream governing influences of country and rock, "the songs were as confidently creative and explosively fun as anything being played, anywhere."

"The pendulum always eventually swings towards the best music, which for many people is when everything is getting filtered through a mix of country and rock," Wilson said.

'Save A Horse' and 'Redneck Woman'

Rich believes that the sound and style developed during two consecutive years of Tuesday nights at The Pub of Love honed the sound necessary to pull country music out of a "rut" of neo-traditional and traditional pop-aimed familiarity.

"Artists and songwriters — not country's radio industry or label executives — have always dictated country music's future," he said. "Just like initially calling Conway Twitty an Elvis impersonator, wanting to send Johnny Cash and his slicked-back hair singing about cocaine and guns back to Memphis, or Willie Nelson retreating to Austin and coming back to Nashville, country music's industry hates, then eventually accepts what honest artists that fans appreciate are making as catalysts driving (mainstream tastes)."

"We sat on the edge of culture and gave the people something to look at," added Alphin.

While speaking with The Tennessean, he was not wearing one of his trademark oversized hats. However, one is enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The MuzikMafia's recipe for success was made from an eclectic set of ingredients . For instance, the video for their 2004 hit "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" called for diminutive man calling himself "Two Foot Fred," a tall Black rapper in a Resistol hat, a female country performer riding a tractor, a marching band and, of course, helicopters.

"Because neither John nor I have nothing to lose, we weren't afraid of the perceived walls of Nashville's mainstream industry," Alphin said. "Whatever we were feeling in our hearts, we gave that our all."

For Wilson, the success of her 2004 single "Redneck Woman" made her the most commercially successful female country star in years.

Penning the song with Rich allowed her to embody her own life and values and the power and strength of the women in her family and women she respected in the genre, like her longtime favorites Cline and Lynn.

"Redneck Woman" hit No. 1 on Billboard's country charts in just two months.

The song closed the year as one of America's best-selling pop songs, alongside work by Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw and John Michael Montgomery.

"All I wanted was to get an underrepresented type of female voice heard on country radio," said Wilson.

Defining MuzikMafia's legacy

"The MuzikMafia formula has never stopped being relevant," offered Wilson when asked about what has allowed songs including "Redneck Woman," Big & Rich's "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" and Cowboy Troy's "I Play Chicken With The Train" to travel from downtown Nashville's Lower Broadway location of Rich's Redneck Riviera bar to cities and towns nationwide.

Rich noted that gigs like playing the Rock the Country Fest alongside artists, including his longtime songwriting client Aldean, Kid Rock, Miranda Lambert and more, find his longtime collective playing in front of the largest crowds of their career.

"The charismatic excitement that two rockers, a rapper and a hippie can bring to a stage to make something exciting happen is timeless," he said.

For Rich, having a catalog that has grown beloved with age is "one of the greatest honors" of his career.

"Having fans who say they met their wife while dancing to 'Save A Horse' and walked down the aisle to (2007 No. 1 country hit) 'Lost In This Moment' is great," said Rich. "Our music catalog is bookmarked into the best moments of our fans' lives."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Big & Rich, Gretchen Wilson on MuzikMafia's relevance to Nashville