|
www.lukebryan.com
Fans drawn in by Luke Bryan’s boyish, down-home charm
soon discover what’s behind it: an intelligent wit, an off-the-wall sense of
humor and a unique take on life shaped by experiences both joyful and
tragic.
They also soon discern that this boy next door is a
talented triple threat vocalist, songwriter and musician.
Even before his first Capitol Records Nashville single,
“All My Friends Say,” had been sent to country radio, Bryan was already
earning significant media attention, including being named one of Billboard
magazine’s new faces to watch in 2007. He was the only country music
performer selected for the honor. Bryan was also included in Country
Weekly’s “Who’s Hot in 2007” feature and the single was chosen as an iTunes
“Discovery Download” of the week.
 At
the same time, Bryan’s second major cut as a songwriter—Billy Currington’s
“Good Directions”—was quickly climbing the country airplay charts and
eventually hit the top spot on the country singles charts in May 2007 giving
the Georgia native his first #1 song (two straight weeks) … as a songwriter.
Bryan’s first major cut was the title track to Travis Tritt’s “Honky Tonk
History.”
Countrified is something that comes naturally to Bryan.
He grew up helping his farmer father harvest peanuts, corn and cotton in
Leesburg, Ga., a tiny town that just got its first traffic light two years
ago. But Bryan seemed destined for a different career. Even as a small child
he recalls being drawn to music.
“I had one of those little suitcase record players that
I called my ‘rec-rec’ and I would listen to Ronnie Milsap and Alabama on it
all day, and I mean ALL DAY,” he remembers.
Bryan had his first guitar by age 14, and was playing
in a local bar at 15. By age 16, he was regularly writing songs and leading
his own band. It was during this time he also got involved in playing with
his church youth group.
“It’s kind of funny,” he recalls. “Wednesday nights I’d
be playing for church groups and then Friday and Saturday I’d be playing
Alan Jackson, George Strait and Clint Black at some little old dives in
Georgia.”
His intention was to move to Nashville and pursue a
music career soon after his high school graduation, a goal his family
enthusiastically supported. Sadly, fate had other plans.
Bryan had lined up a Nashville apartment and a
roommate, but on the very day he was scheduled to move, his older brother
and biggest supporter, Chris, was killed in what Bryan calls a “freak car
accident.”
The experience, Bryan says, is “the worst thing anybody
could ever go through. It’s the most life-altering event.” But at the same
time, such a harrowing occurrence brings with it “a whole new appreciation
for life. You take each day as a special day. I don’t take anything for
granted anymore.”
After the accident, Bryan immediately scrapped his
career plans, choosing instead to stay with his family during their painful
ordeal. He continued to write and play music, and eventually enrolled at
Georgia Southern University, not far from home. It was there that Bryan’s
talents really blossomed as he performed with his band nearly every
weekend.
Even after college graduation, Bryan refused to
reconsider moving to Nashville and went to work for his father’s businesses,
a peanut mill and fertilizer plant. But he was unhappy and remembers feeling
“something wasn’t right.” His father sensed it too, and one day took his son
for a drive and told him, “Music is what you were meant to do. You either
quit this job and move to Nashville, or I’m going to fire you.”
“The day I moved to Nashville and every day since then
has been the best day of my life,” Bryan says of finally making his
long-delayed move in September 2001. “I don’t consider one thing I’ve done
since I’ve been in Nashville work. Spreading fertilizer and hauling peanut
wagons, that’s work! Doing interviews and playing for fun crowds, I’ll never
consider that a job.”
He quickly landed a publishing contract at top
independent publisher Murrah Music. There, Bryan found his voice as a writer
by sticking close to the life experiences he knows best, as evidenced on
such album cuts as “Country Man” and his signature song, “We Rode In
Trucks,” a favorite among his Georgia fans.
Soon, interest from Capitol Records Nashville turned
into a recording contract. “It’s all your dreams and everything you every
wanted coming together right there at that moment,” Bryan says of being
offered his deal in 2004.
Capitol has had success in the past pairing new artists
with promising but little known producers with whom the artist has a great
songwriting rapport. This technique worked most notably for Dierks Bentley
and producer Brett Beavers. So the label chose that risky route again when
it allowed Bryan to make his debut album with his accomplished songwriter
buddy, Jeff Stevens, behind the board. The pair had already co-written four
of the album’s tracks, including “All My Friends Say.”
The label’s gamble paid off. The Bryan/Stevens pairing
has resulted in a fresh and contemporary-sounding album that’s just country
enough to represent Bryan’s rural Georgia upbringing, but rocking enough to
reflect the years he spent honing his live chops at bars and fraternity
houses in his home state, where he is already a bona fide star. I’ll Stay
Me is scheduled for release in August.
After years spent building a following in Georgia, it’s
not surprising that Bryan chose to return there to shoot the video for “All
My Friends Say” at a Theta Chi fraternity house on the campus of the
University of Georgia in Athens. It was a comfortable environment for the
entertainer and the perfect setting for the witty song’s equally amusing
film incarnation. Noted video director Shaun Silva lensed the clip, which
shows off Bryan’s significant skills as a live entertainer as part of the
story line.
“I still get shocked all the time when I meet random
people and they say ‘You’re Luke Bryan.’ That’s still pretty neat,” the
singer says of his home state fan base. “Georgia’s what’s kept the bills
paid forever.”
Looking back, Bryan knows he wasn’t ready for Nashville
the first time he’d planned to live there. “If I had moved when I was 20, I
may not have stayed,” he says. “I was such a home boy I think I would have
come up here and just gotten a little freaked out.”
He also has the benefit of maturity and experience now.
“When I was 19 or 20 if you had told me standing on the Batman building [the
BellSouth tower in downtown Nashville] and playing my guitar would get me a
record deal, I probably would have done it,” he says with a laugh.
More importantly, Bryan feels his late brother has had
a hand in much of the success he’s now achieved. “I attribute a lot of
things that have happened for me so easily to him looking down on me,” he
says. “I don’t know how I can be so fortunate, so it’s got to be him working
it all out for me.”
www.lukebryan.com
.gif) |
|
94.1 KMPS
is the Proud Sponsor of Luke Bryan's
performance at
A Victorian Country Christmas this year! |
|
|
