Minnesota Artist Doug Spartz in Top Five of Americana Charts with New Release "The One Who's Leavin'" in Spite of Year of Health Woes

Despite year of major health problems, independent artist latest release "The One Who's Leavin'" climbs to top of R&R Americana Chart.

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) August 10, 2007 -- Doug Spartz had no idea this past November when he was riding the peak of the success of his Americana release "American Stories, Lies & Tales" and in particular the song "Name on the Wall" that his world would take an unforeseen twist.

Spartz suffered a heart attack on November 19th and after having two stents placed, was sent home to recuperate. At the time, the song "Name On the Wall" had just crossed over to mainstream country (#66 on Billboard) and all the focus was on keeping the momentum going on the song.

"Just that quickly we pretty much shut everything down," Spartz recalls. "My promotion team continued to work the song, but without any certainty of me being able to go and do any touring, there just wasn't a lot more that they could do".

Spartz continue to recuperate slowly, but was frustrated with not feeling as good as the doctors told him he would. So it was back to the Mayo Clinic for him in February, where it didn't take long for the cause of his slow recovery to be discovered. He was told that he had Stage 3 colon cancer and that surgery would have to done as soon as they could safely do so based on the recent heart attack.

"All of a sudden we were no longer talking about radio charts and airplay and we were making decisions about surgery, wills and the such", Spartz notes.

Surgery was done on March 1st and the Mayo doctors told Spartz that they believed that they had removed all the cancer, but time would tell.

There was no doubt in his mind that he was going back into the studio immediately and finish up some songs that he had written and some others that he had always wanted to record, but hadn't gotten around to it. He called up his producer in Arkansas, Doug Deforest, right from his hospital bed and said to schedule him in as soon as he could. Just two weeks after the surgery, Spartz was put on a plane in a wheelchair and he went down to Arkansas.

That's when "The One Who's Leavin'" came together. But not only did the CD project come together, but fellow recording artists did too. Spartz' promoter, Fred Boenig put out a call to some of the other top Americana artists and told them about what was happening and several of them jumped on board to record songs with him. Jay Boy Adams, Tom Gilliam (who also suffered a heart attack in 2006) and Eilen Jewell all did cuts on the project; along with legendary Sun Records artist Billy Lee Riley ("Red Hot"), Cynthia Johnson and Bobby Schnitzer ("Funkytown"), Gary Gazaway (Joe Cocker's horn section player) and Sarah Jo Roark ("American Stories, Lies & Tales").

The resulting 20 track CD has shot right up to the top of the R&R Americana music chart and is sitting at #4 a mere eight weeks after its release.

The CD has a little bit of everything on it from country, rock, bluegrass, blues, Triple A; all backed by the exceptional "Cutting Crew" from Raney's Studio, Drasco, Arkansas.
A lot of the songs were penned by Spartz including "Risky World" and "Tombstone Mansion" with Tom Gillam; "Flight of Jesse James" and "Pederson & Jesus" with Jay Boy Adams; "All is Well", and the title cut "The One Who's Leavin'".

Spartz recently finished a 14 state radio tour and is putting together a performing tour. "I'm not sitting around waiting for the next piece of news to drop, I'm doing what I love to do and when it ends there will be no regrets or wishes that I had done something differently", he muses. "To be at the top of the chart at this stage in my life? How could it get any better then that?"

PUBLICITY:
Cindy Hudson-Grant
Great North Music
(218)-820-8302

PROMOTIONS:
Fred Boenig
Americana Media Pro
(610) 967-5948

Cindy Hudson-Grant
Great North Music
(218) 820-8302

MANAGEMENT:
Doug Deforest
Diamond Music Group
(281)-813-1853

WEBSITE:
www.dougspartz.com

MY SPACE:
www.myspace.com/dougspartzandfriends

###