Where is Trace Adkins from? Country music fan fave Trace Darrell Adkins, the son of a paper mill worker was born on January 13, 1962, in Springhill, Louisiana, and bred in the nearby town of Sarepta. As a young adult, Adkins worked selling the national rural newspaper Grit and hauling hay, and amidst his teen years began singing in a gospel quartet called New Commitment.
Trace Adkins Early Music Career
The group recorded two albums for an independent label: The New Commitment Quartet and The Best of the New Commitment Quartet, released in 1979 and 1980 respectively. After Adkins’s days in high school, he played defensive end for the football team at Louisiana Tech University, where he studied for a degree in petroleum technology.
However, after two years of college, Adkins sustained a knee injury which hampered his chances of a career in sports. Thus, he dropped out of school, spending over eight years working in the oil industry as a derrickman and pipefitter. Within this period, Adkins married his high school sweetheart, with whom he had two daughters, but the union ended four years later.
About Adkins Music Career
Adkins, like many other country artists has seen his share of hard times, and then some. He scaled through several tragedies ranging from car accidents to a gunshot wound and working for nearly ten years on offshore oil rigs while mounting every podium he could with the hopes of attracting the attention of Nashville. In fact, Trace Adkins is a versatile, honest songwriter who couldn’t sweep his ruggedness under the rug even if he wanted to.
In his words he explained on his official website “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.”
Meanwhile, Adkins continued to nurture his dreams of becoming a musician while performing at local venues whenever possible. Luckily for him, he joined a band called Bayou and that group eventually won a regional talent contest and competed in the national finals in Nashville, Tennessee.
Returning to the Drilling Rigs
After performing a successful talent contest, Adkins spent four years touring with Bayou in cities in Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Mississippi. But, he soon became disinterested in the music business and returned to the drilling rigs. As he returned to the drilling rigs, he asked doctors to set an injured pinky finger that had to be sewn back on following an industrial accident in a permanent bend so he could still play the guitar.
Trace Adkins Released his Debut Album
Sometime in November 1996, Trace Adkins released his debut album for Capitol Nashville. The album ‘Dreaming Out Loud’ produced by Hendricks, proved a major success. Eventually, it got a platinum certification the following year.
His first single, “There’s a Girl in Texas,” got into the top 20 of the Billboard country chart, while the follow-up single, “Every Light In The House Is On,” soared at number three.
In 1997, Trace Adkins climbed to the peak of the country music scene, earning his first number-one single for the song “(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing,” seeing his album Dreamin’ Out Loud reach platinum status, and winning his first award from the Academy of Country Music as Top New Male Vocalist.
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