 | | The runner-up on the 2011 season of Fox's American Idol, Lauren Alaina is a Southern singer with a bent toward contemporary country-pop. |
 | | Born and raised in Dallas, TX, country vocalist Steve Holy was the youngest of eight children and entertained his grade school classmates with his imitations of Conway Twitty. |
 | | By all Nash Vegas accounts, North Carolina singer/songwriter Jimmy Wayne comes from the wrong side of the tracks. |
 | | Born and raised in Kennett, Missouri, country singer and songwriter David Nail was drawn at first to sports, particularly baseball, but found himself dreaming of a music career too, and as time went by, he put more and more of his time and energy in the direction of music. |
 | | A country-pop-folk trio with roots in Arkansas, Edens Edge are comprised of Hannah Blaylock (lead vocals), Dean Berner (harmony vocals, guitar, Dobro), and Cherrill Green (harmony vocals, mandolin, banjo, guitar). |
 | | A product of the Mississippi Delta region, Steve Azar was born April 11, 1964. After moving to Nashville to pursue a career in music, he released his debut album, Heartbreak Town, in 1996. |
 | | Josh Gracin was born October 18, 1980, and grew up in Westland, Michigan. He performed at fairs, music competitions, and other venues as a young man, and did the vocal for a demo version of a song ("She Loves Me," written by Ken Salaets and Tim Barbor) in Nashville in 1996 when he was only 16 years old. |
 | | Rock-influenced country singer Bucky Covington first rose to fame in 2006 as a contestant on the televised talent hunt American Idol. |
 | | Singer, mandolin player, and ace fiddler Susie Brown and singer and guitarist Danelle Leverett were each pursuing their own solo musical careers when they were introduced to each other by songwriter Kris Bergsnes after one of Brown's sets at a Nashville club. |
 | | Country singer Jason Michael Carroll is a rootsy artist with a rocker's edge. Carroll was raised in a strict religious family in North Carolina and had little contact with secular country music. |
 | | A gifted country songwriter and singer, Ashton Shepherd was born August 16, 1986, in Coffeeville, Alabama. |
 | | A country singer and songwriter with a Southern rock heart, James Otto was born into a military family at the Fort Louis Army Base in Washington and grew up all over the U. |
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 | | Women swoon every time hunky country heartthrob Keith Anderson takes the stage, but despite his good looks, Anderson's first big country music break was a behind-the-scenes job. |
 | | Country artist Josh Thompson kicked off his career in 2009, when the songwriter released his first single, “Beer on the Table,” and co-authored a song for Jason Michael Carroll’s Top Ten album Growing Up Is Getting Old. |
 | | Alabama's Heartland were formed by singer Jason Albert, guitarist Craig Anderson, and drummer Todd Anderson, with lead guitarist Mike Myerson, bassist Keith West, and fiddler Chuck Crawford coming on board a little later to make the group a six-piece. |
 | | Bass player and vocalist Ronnie Dunn (born Ronnie Gene Dunn) joined Louisiana-born Leon Eric "Kix" Brooks to create the most successful country music duo of the 1990s. |
 | | Jamie O'Neal first struck Music City gold as a sought-after songwriter; it was only later that her own singing career blossomed. |
 | | Emerson Drive began in the western Alberta town of Grand Prairie, where singer Brad Mates, bassist Jeff Loberg, fiddler Pat Allingham, and keyboardist Chris Hartman began honing their sound as high-school talent-show competitors. |
 | | Before he became half of Brooks & Dunn, the most popular country duo of the '90s, Kix Brooks cut an unsuccessful solo album on the basis of a much more productive songwriting career. |
 | | A brassy country singer whose retro style garnered comparisons to singers like Natalie Maines and Kasey Chambers, Sunny Sweeney grew up in Longview, Texas. |
 | | Contemporary country singer/songwriter Chad Brock was born and raised in Ocala, FL; despite performing in the church choir throughout his youth, his initial love was athletics, and he was a highly touted high-school football player. |
 | | A country singing duo who took the 21st century path of winning a television talent show (Can You Duet) to break into the public eye, Steel Magnolia consist of Meghan Linsey and Joshua Scott Jones. |
 | | A country trio that brings myriad influences, from rock to R&B, into its sound, the FARM grew out of a songwriting session in Tennessee in 2010. |
 | | In 2005, singer Kellie Pickler landed a spot in the fifth season of American Idol. Though she finished sixth, the former waitress and Miss North Carolina contestant charmed American audiences with her Southern twang and blonde ambition, resulting in a contract with BNA Records that yielded her debut album, Small Town Girl, in the fall of 2006 and an eponymous sophomore release in 2008, which yielded Pickler's first Top Ten hit, “Best Days of Your Life,” a song she co-wrote with Taylor Swift. |
 | | Country singer/songwriter James Wesley was born and raised in Mound Valley, KS. Originally signed to Warner Bros. |
 | | Although he didn't quite achieve the fame or sales of new country contemporaries as Tim McGraw or Clay Walker, Mark Wills earned a respectable following and strong reviews following the release of his eponymous 1996 debut album. |
 | | Although originally known as the guy who, upon Kara Dioguardi’s request, stripped off his shirt during his American Idol audition, Casey James quickly became one of the show’s leading contestants, celebrated for both his guitar skills and bluesy vocals. |
 | | Working to the traditional side of contemporary country, singer, songwriter, pianist and Georgia native Craig Campbell is blessed with a deep, expressive voice, an awareness of the genre’s history and a no-gimmicks approach to performance that brings out the sincerity in his songs. |
 | | Contemporary country singer Phil Vassar made his name as a chart-topping songwriter before landing a record deal and becoming a hitmaking artist in his own right. |
 | | Country singer/songwriter Darryl Worley grew up in Pyburn, TN, the son of a father who left his job at a local paper company to become a Methodist preacher and a mother who was a featured singer in the church choir. |
 | | In 2004, Michelle Branch took a break from her successful solo career to team with friend and touring backup singer Jessica Harp in a new project called the Wreckers. |
 | | Already having made a name for herself as the highly energetic frontwoman of new country trio Trick Pony, Heidi Newfield decided upon a solo career, and in November of 2006 announced that she was leaving the group and going it alone. |
 | | Georgia-born singer/songwriter Thomas Rhett, the son of award-winning country crooner Rhett Akins, didn’t start seriously considering following in his father's footsteps until his senior year in high school. |
 | | A female country traditionalist during a time when they were quite rare around Nashville, Sara Evans gained her RCA contract in 1996 after her rendition of Buck Owens' perennial chestnut "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail" impressed its songwriter, Harlan Howard, so much that he considered himself duty-bound to help her. |
 | | Joe Nichols took the roundabout way to country success, scoring his first major hit six years after landing his initial record deal. |
 | | Country singer and songwriter Jerrod Niemann has penned songs for Garth Brooks, Neal McCoy, Jamey Johnson, and Zona Jones, among others, and has built a strong fan base as a performer of his own material as well. |
 | | A native of Hannah, South Carolina, country crooner Josh Turner burst onto the scene in 2003 with the powerful "Long Black Train," a song he'd written after listening to a Hank Williams box set. |
 | | Country singer and songwriter Jon Pardi, born May 20, 1985, and raised in Dixon, California, discovered his love of country music early, thanks in no small part to his grandfather's country karaoke machine. |
 | | Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Greg Bates was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, the heart, soul, and center of country music. |
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 | | In late May 2004, Gretchen Wilson's debut single, "Redneck Woman," became the first by a solo female singer to top the Billboard country singles chart in over two years; it also reached number one faster than any single in the previous decade. |
 | | The country vocal group Gloriana began taking shape in 2007, when Tom Gossin and Mike Gossin -- two guitar-playing brothers who had been working as a duo in North Carolina -- moved to Nashville and met Rachel Reinert. |
 | | Although initially known as the winner (along with Apolo Anton Ohno and Helio Castroneves) of two consecutive seasons of Dancing with the Stars, Julianne Hough also enjoyed success as country singer. |
 | | A pair of gonzo country showmen initially shunned by the Nashville mainstream but eventually becoming the face of the Music City as the 2000s drew to a close, Big & Rich were the most unlikely country success story of the new millennium. |
 | | Like her contemporary Shania Twain, singer/songwriter Terri Clark came storming out of Canada and captured the attention of America's country music industry in the mid-'90s. |
 | | Pop-country trio Love and Theft fell into place in Nashville when singers and songwriters Eric Gunderson, Stephen Barker Liles, and Brian Bandas threw in together, taking turns singing lead while the other two sang gorgeous backing harmonies. |
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 | | The framework for country band the Lost Trailers has been around ever since guitarist and songwriter Stokes Nielson and a high school friend of his from Atlanta, keyboardist/vocalist Ryder Lee, released the independent CD The Story of the New Age Cowboy. |
 | | Fusing a young man's take on heartland rock with the tougher side of Texas country music and the cocky enthusiasm of alt-country firebrands, the Eli Young Band have become a potent draw in the Southwest on the strength of local airplay and extensive touring. |
