b. 18 June 1976, Ada, Oklahoma, USA. This new country artist was taught to play guitar by his uncle while growing up in his native Oklahoma. Still only in his mid-teens he began playing the local bar circuit, but a performance at a tribute to legendary songwriter Mae Boren Axton prompted Shelton to relocate to Nashville. Barely two weeks after finishing high school, Shelton was set up in a small apartment in the capital of country music. A job at a music publishing company paid the bills while he began to make inroads on the club circuit. In autumn 1997 Shelton hooked up with producer and songwriter Bobby Braddock, who helped the singer secure a production contract with Sony Music. A recording contract with Giant Records followed in July 1998. Shelton and Braddock finished recording the singer’s debut album the following autumn, but were forced to switch labels to parent company Warner Brothers Records following the collapse of Giant. Shelton enjoyed immediate success when his poignant debut single ‘Austin’, about a relationship saved with help from an answering machine, reached number 1 on the US country singles chart in August 2001 and stayed at the top for the next five weeks. His self-titled debut album enjoyed similar commercial reward, establishing Shelton as one of the brightest new country stars of the new millennium.
This reputation was further confirmed by the mainstream Top 10 success of the follow-up album, The Dreamer.
