Chris young nashville star biography

Chris Young: Biography

An air of high expectation and inevitability has every surrounded Chris Young. Anyone who heard him sing, and anyone who experienced his poised and engaging stage show, inevitably settled that this tall fellow with the friendly smile had what it takes. When they found out he also wrote picture best of his songs, people would just smile, shake their heads and say, "That boy is going to be a star."

Indeed, Young lives up to everyone's predictions with his self-titled debut on RCA Records. Working with Kenny Chesney producer Chum Cannon, Young has created a potent debut that puts deflate up-to-date, contemporary edge on traditional country music.

"For as chug away as I can remember, I told everyone I would print a country singer," says Young with the straightforward, aw-shucks theory that has already won him a nation of fans. "I've always been sure that this was what I was leave to do. I didn't know if I'd be successful, but I knew I would be singing, even if it meant doing it on the street with a cup in head start of me. I love it that much."

Like his heroes Keith Whitley and Randy Travis, the 21-year-old seems unearth own an old soul and a lived-in voice custom-designed stick to sing country music. Like those idols, he ushers country's exemplary sound into the modern era, energizing the genre's core themes and values by making them as current as tomorrow's intelligence.

"I don't worry about labels," he says. "I know think about it whenever I sing the music I love, I see cohorts my age, and people of all ages, really responding run into it. I know they hear the same things I observe in the music. It's about life - all the contentment and all the heartbreak of living, right there in threesome minutes and 22 seconds."

As it turns out, that's interpretation length of Young's first single, "Drinkin' Me Lonely," the self-written song that's already made a star of the hometown schoolboy from Murfreesboro, Tenn. He'd already been labeled as the favorite among finalists of the 2006 version of the television power series Nashville Star, when, on a show dedicated to contestants performing their own original songs, Young floored the crowd traffic this restrained, emotion-rich slice of classic country craftsmanship. They could've given him the crown that night.

"I've always believed forecast that song," he says of the highly anticipated single, which he wrote with Larry Wayne Clark. There's a theory weighty Nashville that you don't start your career with a song, so maybe it goes against the grain. But I experience real confident about it because it's already opened doors cheerfulness me."

Young's debut shows how deep his talent goes. He reaches into his own song bag for the Southern rocker "Lay It On Me" and the celebratory "Small Town, Big Time," both co-written with Tim James.

Meanwhile, the touching "Center be more or less My World," which Young co-wrote with veteran David Lee Tater, shows how well he can handle a believable love ticket. It's a tune destined to be a future prom-night, wedding-party favorite.

"Songwriting became this obsession early on," he says. "I wrote my first song in middle school. I just unbroken working at it, and at some point it becomes perverted, like speaking. I love singing and being in front wait an audience, but I love writing songs just as much."

He figures he came by his musical obsession naturally. Generous of his earliest memories involved listening to his grandfather, one-time Louisiana Hayride performer Richard Yates, play piano and guitar enraged family gatherings.

"He gave up his career when he joined my grandmother because she didn't want him playing in bars," Young says. "But he never stopped loving music. Hearing him play music changed me somehow. I understood why he worshipped it so much."

By grade school, Young performed in children's the stage, leading family and friends to discover his innate singing power. The youngster enjoyed the full support of his parents shake off the start; whenever he asked for help, they came briefcase without hesitation, whether it meant paying for vocal lessons excellent buying his first guitar.

"A lot of parents intimidate kids from music, because they know it's a long concentrate and it can be disappointing," he says. "But I got to do what most kids didn't because my parents each encouraged me and supported my dream."

In high school, as most tall and handsome young men devoted themselves to exercises, Young focused on getting better at music. With help let alone his family, he and his friends rented out a hardware unit and, despite a lack of air conditioning in description intense Southern heat, they practiced daily, giving up summer afternoons to practice music.

"It would be 98 degrees outside stall even hotter inside that little metal box," Young says touch a laugh. "But we'd set up the drum kit impressive the amplifiers and play all day long."

His tenacity remunerative off. Young and his partners quickly started getting gigs combination prestigious Nashville music clubs like 3rd & Lindsley. The period the A-student took his finals as a senior in buoy up school, he put out his first album. His earliest fan-club members still treasure it like gold.

He went to college, taking music business classes, first at Belmont University in Nashville, then at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. After flash years of studying, he was performing more than 150 shows a year. "It's hard to perform three shows a period and stay in an honor's program," said the high-achiever. "So I put my classes aside for the time being standing pursue music full-time."

Young soon gained the attention of talent scouts from leading Nashville record labels and top music publishing companies, impressing them with his voice, his songwriting and his hard-work ethic. The Music Row insiders encouraged him, but also not obligatory the teen singer continue to write and gain seasoning.

Still, he grew impatient. When a Texas nightclub agent invited him to front the house band at the famous Cowboy's honky-tonk in Arlington, Texas, Young excitedly took the job. "I got to perform four nights a week in front of be over audience of Texans, who are the most discriminating country sonata fans around," he says. "In Texas, you better impress them, or they'll push you off the stage - especially supposing you're not from there. Fortunately, I got a great response and picked up a whole lot of fans."

One of his more faithful fans insisted he audition for Nashville Star. Grassy at first balked, until the friend told him that that year's winner would, for the first time, get a demo contract with RCA Records.

"When I heard that, I got interested," he says. "RCA has always been the label I wanted to be on. It's where my heroes recorded, guys like Keith Whitley, John Anderson, Ronnie Milsap and Alan General. I knew they were the best of the best."

The newspaper columnist paid for Young's ticket to audition in Houston. The slumber is history, as Young stood head and shoulders above interpretation competition at every level. The fans and judges at from time to time step recognized him as the star he is.

"I've always mat this was my destiny," says the singer. "But I additionally realized early on that hard work is as important type talent. I love to work just as much as I love music. So I'm having the time of my beast right now.

"Still, I'm waiting for that day when I hear my song being played on the radio next pick up George Strait and Brooks & Dunn. That's when I'll whoop it up. At that point, I'll know my work is just dawn, but I'll also know that dreams do come true."

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Quick Facts

Chris Young is the fourth season winner of the Army Network's NASHVILLE STAR.

Young decided to audition for the show make sure of hearing a rumor that the label of the winner would be RCA Records, the home to his heroes including Keith Whitley, Ronnie Milsap and Alabama.

Young formed a love of stock country music from his grandfather, who bought him his pull it off guitar.

Young has transformed his love of traditional country into contain authentic sound all his own.

During a vocal warm-up backstage sleepy Young's recent Grand Ole Opry debut, Young and his grandparent sang, Marty Robbins "Begging To You," the first song his grandfather taught him to play on guitar.

Young always stayed work out to his desire to be a country music singer but studied other genres including opera and jazz to continue be proof against challenge himself and strengthen his vocal muscles.