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Doug Stone
Biography

When Doug Stone's debut single entered the charts, the country music industry was long overdue for a male artist who not only specialized in sincere and moving love songs, but one who also was versatile enough not to be pigeonholed as a one-sided ballad singer. The year was 1990, and Doug's "l'd Be Better Off (In A Pine Box)" hurled the Newnan, Georgia native into country's top five and forever etched his poignant and vulnerable vocal style into the psyche of country fans everywhere.

Doug Stone is widely considered to be one of the much-ballyhooed wave of videogenic and exciting new country artists that bulldozed country music's landscape beginning in 1989 and helped to redefine the genre over the next ten years. That pack of diverse artists also included current luminaries such as Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Garth Brooks, and Travis Tritt.

Combine Doug Stone's own noteworthy songwriting, a penchant for piercingly laconic material, innate working class sensibilities and his supple country baritone voice and you end up with recordings that carry a uniquely powerful and arrow-direct emotional punch.
All of these ingredients simmered in the stew of Doug's youth, which included the splitting of his parents at age 12. Doug credits the influence of his singing, guitar-picking mother, Gail, for his lifetime affair with country music. When Doug was 7 years old, she began to take him along to her local gigs and later that year arranged for him to open a Loretta Lynn show.

As Doug told an interviewer in 1990, "I shook Loretta's hand and said hello to her and then went out to do my thing. I was too scared to sing, but I knew how to play E, A and B real good on the guitar. So I went out, played these three chords, a kind of boogie, all the time looking over at my mother offstage with an 'Am I through playing yet?' look. When she finally nodded, I just stopped playing and walked off the stage."

Triumphant as that moment in Doug's life was, the hard truth is that after his parents divorced, Doug's life changed dramatically. His father sold the family home in Marietta and moved with his three sons into a trailer situated on a hillside in Newnan, which lacked many modern conveniences like running water. Doug's father didn't discourage his musical ambitions but insisted that he learn a trade in order to keep food on the table and began teaching Doug to become a mechanic.

When he was 15, Doug and his best friend started a band, which at different times in its existence was called Impact and Main Street, among others. They played $5 per night gigs; at parties and skating rinks. Doug wrote a song called "Sugar," which impressed the young girls, thus strengthening his resolve to follow music.

At age 16, Doug left his father's mobile nest for a mobile nest of his own and began remodeling the trailer to accommodate a recording studio. Proof positive that Doug was destined for a life of making music came in a not so subtle way when the bank repossessed his trailer. He moved into a 12 x 12 well house and again made provisions in the small place for another studio. Once the studio was completed, and with his first marriage well on its way, Doug set out about to gradually enlarge the wellhouse where the family lived for 7 years.

Doug's mother was firm in her belief that her son was a diamond-in-the-rough star and worked diligently to ink dates for his band. One such 1987 date took place at a VFW hall where Doug gained notice from Phyllis Bennett who became his first manager. With Bennett's help, Doug signed a recording contract, which led to the release of his debut album and launched him headlong into overnight sensation status. At the time, Doug was working as a maintenance worker at a local country club.

Each of Doug's first fifteen singles peaked inside the top 5, with eight hitting No. 1, including "In A Different Light," 'I Thought It Was You," "Too Busy Being In Love," "I Never Knew Love, and the Grammy-nominated "l'd Be Better Off (In A Pine Box)."

After surviving emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery at age 35, a subsequent heart attack, and complicated voice problems, Doug Stone is today at his most resilient and resolved. He says, "I feel better today than I ever have. I quit smoking more than 4 years ago; I eat healthy and try to do as much physical activity as possible. I'm happier than I've ever been.

And he's excited about his new association with Atlantic Records and the release of his upcoming project. "I've recorded the vocals by myself at home in order to get it the way I want it. In the studio, Wally Wilson (producer) and I work so well together. We pick up on so many things from each other. The best of what I'm doing now, I owe to his direction."

Doug also has a renewed enthusiasm about his own songwriting but says he's only interested in really great material. "That's led us to scout out the best writers and co-writers. This really is the best album I've cut since the first one."

As the album's lead single "Make Up In Love" races up the charts, Doug is pleased by the reception at radio. "We've been touring the country and visiting radio stations everywhere we can, I've always loved to do that. Everyone at radio has been just great to me. So many of them have said, "It's great to have you back, and even better to see you so healthy and singing better than you ever have,' and that feels wonderful."

His current outlook on life is gleaned from each and every one of his experiences both good and bad, and of course, peppers the tenor of his music. "I don't worry about dying anymore; I'm worried about living." The father of five talks proudly about his family which includes his wife, Beth, and their one-year old daughter, Bailee Rebekah.

In as much as Doug captures and expresses the very essence of both pure heartbreak and unbridled joy in his music, he's quick to call upon the times in his life when there was very little, if any, balance between the two.

Perhaps it's that instinct and his innate ability to emotionally interpret and vocalize the human experience that enables Doug Stone to remain so relevant and viable as an artist. Of course, as he moves forward in life and with his music, tomorrow's experiences are merely songs he hasn't sung yet, and that should make for some pretty potent country music.

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