Biography
Garth Brooks Biography
Troyal Garth Brooks was born February 7, 1962- currently 45 years old, in Tulsa Oklahoma. Garth is an American country singer and songwriter. Garth has recently integrated some pop and rock elements into his performances, and Garth has begun his domination of the singles and album charts in country music. Brooks has quickly crosses over into mainstream pop arena, exposing country music to a larger audience than originally thought.
Brooks has enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, with over 70 hit singles and 15 charted albums to his credit and over 115 million albums sold in the United States alone. Throughout the 1990s he broke records for both sales and concert attendance. In 1999, looking to expand his career boundaries, Brooks began an artistically ambitious multimedia project involving a fictitious alter ego known as Chris Gaines.
Troubled by the conflicts between career and family, in 2001 Brooks officially retired from recording and performing. During this time he has sold millions of albums through an exclusive distribution deal with Wal-Mar and has sporadically released new singles.
Garth’s father worked as a draughtsman for an oil company, while his mother Colleen Carroll was a country music singer on the Capitol records label in the 1950s and also a regular on the Red Foley Show. Even as a child, Brooks was interested in music, often singing in casual family settings, but his primary interest was athletics. In high school he played football and basetball and ran track. After graduation from high school, he attended Oklahoma State in Stillwater on a track scholarship as a javelin thrower. While at OSU, he was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. Despite discontinuing his participation in the sport, he still graduated in 1984 with a degree in advertising.Later that year, Brooks began his professional music career, singing and playing guitar in Oklahoma clubs and bars, particularly the Tumbleweed in Stillwater. After a failed 1985 24-hour trip to Nashvilleto gain a record contract, Brooks returned to Oklahoma and in 1986, married Sandy Mahl of Owasso, Oklahoma, whom he had met while working as a bouncer. The couple had three daughters: Taylor Mayne Pearl (b. 1992), August Anna (b. 1994) and Allie Colleen (b. 1996). The following year, the couple moved to Nashville, and Brooks was able to begin making contacts in the music industry.
While struggling to be noticed by industry executives, Brooks frequently recorded demo records for songwriter Kent Blazy. Blazy introduced Brooks to Trisha Yearwood, another aspiring country singer, in October 1987. The pair became friends and pledged to help each other in their careers. Brooks achieved success first, signing a recording contract with Capitol Records in 1988. Keeping his promise, in 1991, he invited Yearwood to be the opening act on his tour.