Rodney Atkins

Rodney Atkins was born March 28, 1969, in Knoxville, Tenn., and was an adopted child. As an infant at the Holston Methodist Home for Children in Greeneville, Tenn., he was so sick that two couples who had taken him home returned him just a few days later. A third couple from Cumberland Gap, Tenn., adopted him as well and, even though his ailments worsened, refused to give him up. His adoptive mother had been raised in a coal mining family near a tannery camp, and his dad survived an upbringing marked by poverty and episodes of abuse.

When not doing chores or playing baseball with friends, Atkins spent time in high school with his guitar. He played, solo or with a band, at county fairs, festivals and shopping malls, most of the time losing money on expenses. Eventually, as a psychology major at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, he started visiting Nashville, playing more gigs and writing songs. Part of his degree program required that he get field experience, which led him to work as a clinical counselor at the Woodland Residential Center. He also did odd jobs to pay his way through school. While driving a delivery truck, he met the woman who would become his wife.

Curb Records signed Atkins and released two Top 40 singles in 2002. In 2003, the single "Honesty (Write Me a List)" climbed into the Top 5, and Curb finally released his debut album, Honesty

Though country singer Rodney Atkins didn't get his first guitar until one Christmas in high school, he took to the instrument instantly and was soon playing anywhere he could around his Cumberland Gap, TN, home. While at college at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Atkins used the opportunity to go into Nashville as often as he could, and by the time he graduated he was starting to make himself known as a performer in the area. In 1997, he signed to Curb Records and was set to release his debut shortly after, but when he didn't like the finished results and label head Mike Curb gave him the go-ahead to record new songs, Atkins spent the next two years working with various producers, engineers, and musicians for an album that would ultimately never see the light of day. He resurfaced, however, in 2003 with his true debut, Honesty, and three years later If You're Going Through Hell, recorded in his home studio, came out. It's America arrived in 2009. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide