ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE

After 16 years in the trenches, singer Jack Ingram is tasting perks of fame but hasn’t lost his offstage anonymity.

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Tue, Oct 21, 2008 (2 a.m.)

It took 16 years but country singer Jack Ingram finally became an overnight success.

“They told me it would only take 10,” Ingram says, cell phone pressed to his ear as he walks through Dallas Love Field to catch a plane to Tampa, Fla., for a concert.

On Friday, his tour returns him to Las Vegas, where he was named the Academy of Country Music’s “Top New Male Vocalist” in May.

With the honor comes national recognition, more money and the perks of fame.

“It happens to a lot of entertainers,” the 37-year-old Texas native says. “It’s not that I can afford a bigger truck. Now I can get one for free — just do a radio spot for a dealer.”

His breakthrough came with the No. 1 single “Wherever You Are,” the CMT-award-winning video “Love You” and last year’s album “This is It,” which includes a cover of the rock smash “Lips of an Angel” and a duet with Sheryl Crow on “Hold On.”

His latest single, “That’s a Man,” is getting rave reviews, and he’s working on his eighth album, which is due out in the spring.

Ingram has toured with Brooks & Dunn, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, Martina McBride and Crow. He’s also appeared on national TV shows.

Before his career exploded Ingram was a honky-tonker who made his living playing clubs, almost exclusively in Texas.

“You can definitely make a living, but there’s a limit. You can only play Lubbock and Amarillo and Houston and Dallas so may times a year,” he says.

After stops in Las Vegas and California, Ingram is back to Texas to play familiar haunts in Austin, Katy, Lubbock, Odessa, College Station, Fort Worth, Uvalde and Paris.

“When you’re coming up it’s real good, but you reach a spot where you have to re-evaluate what you want. I realized I was reaching for more than Texas,” he says.

“I can’t really say it was like being tied down. You’re not tied down if you’re making a living doing what you love. Whether you’re just in Texas or all over the country, you still love it. So it’s not that I was hampered in any way, I just didn’t understand why it was so regional. I always thought musically it wasn’t. I just needed to get the right people around me to get it going in the right direction.”

His successes have turned him into a national act. Life hasn’t changed much, he says, though he sometimes has to fly to places where he catches the tour bus, and he travels longer roads than those in Texas.

“Making a living in Texas prepares you for the life,” he says.

He still lives in an Austin suburb with his wife and three young children.

He doesn’t mind the loss of anonymity that fame has brought.

“In this business you can be as anonymous as you want to be,” Ingram says. “Especially when you’re at the level I’m at. I can go away real quick. I’ve seen it happen. Walking through the airport right now, a couple of people recognized me. But I’m not a huge star yet, so I really live an anonymous existence, except at my shows and things.”