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Trace Adkins

"I grew up in the oilfield, and that's who I am and what I am. I'm a Southern gentleman--polite, hospitable, and respectful--but I'm not going to try to be squeaky clean. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a roughneck, and I won't try to hide it."

Whether you've seen 6-foot-6, 250-pound Trace Adkins performing onstage or signing autographs or debating fellow articulate celebrities on television, you know he could hardly hide his ruggedness if he wanted to. An attentive observer also will notice that Adkins' essence is nowhere near as one-dimensional as his self-description.

A complex mixture, he's a burly former college football lineman who sometimes dances onstage. He's an ex-offshore oil driller who's sufficiently informed and well-spoken to contend with authors and other knowledgeable observers on ABC-TVs Politically Incorrect (a frequent guest--he's appeared 4 times). He's a former gospel singer who confesses he cusses too much; a happily married husband with an unhappy past; a thrice-wed critic of the national divorce rate; a divorced father concerned about small aged children of broken homes; a serious guy who loves to laugh. One of his signature hits claims to be "no thinkin' thing," yet he clearly has devoted a lot of thought to his country music. He's a macho man sensitive enough to blink back tears.

Son of a papermill worker, Tracy Darrell Adkins was born in Springhill, La., and grew up in the nearby town of Sarepta. He worked at selling the national rural newspaper Grit and hauling hay before going off to Louisiana Tech to study petroleum technology for a couple of years. He then spent nearly a decade on offshore oil rigs. He also worked as a carpenter and a pipefitter while tirelessly mounting every stage he could get onto on his way to capturing the attention of Nashville. But his employment history hardly tells the story. Once he spent months recuperating from a complicated fracture ~ that occurred when he stepped into a hole on his farm near Nashville. Offshore, he rode out a hurricane. He had to have a finger sewn back on following an industrial accident. His nose had to be reattached after a highway crash. He was run down by a bulldozer and had a 400-barrel oil tank explode as he was repairing it. He dropped out of college to marry his high school sweetheart and experienced his first divorce after four years and two daughters. A second wife accidentally shot him through the heart, yet two years later he not only was still alive, he had signed a Capitol Records Nashville recording contract.

Success came quickly. His first single, "There's A Girl In Texas," got well into the top 20. His second, "Every Light In The House Is On," reached number three, and his third and fourth, "(This Ain't) No Thinkin' Thing" and "I Left Something Turned On at Home," rose to number one. His initial album was certified platinum, and his follow-up collection, Big Time was certified gold soon after its release. The latter produced more hits, including "The Rest Of Mine" - a classic kind of ballad which the singer himself co-wrote - and the similarly haunting "Lonely Won't Leave Me Alone."

Awards and awards nominations came almost as fast as the commercial triumphs. In 1997 he won the Academy of Country Music's new Male Vocalist title, Country Weekly's Favorite Male Newcomer and was presented the TNN/Music City News Male Star of Tomorrow Award in 1998. He also has been nominated for a Country Music Association's Horizon Award, and for Best New Artist in the Country Music Radio Awards. He has toured like a long-haul truck driver, performing live before millions of fans since 1996, but he doesn't tend to regard a crowded tour schedule as an extreme hardship. "Performing live is something I absolutely live for, he explains".

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