City of Springhill, Louisiana

Trace Adkins

Trace Adkins, The Country Music artist of the album, "Dreamin Out Loud," and " Big Time", is from Sarepta, Louisiana. This is a small town located just 7 miles south of Springhill. He was born in Springhill to Peggy and Aaron Adkins of Sarepta on January 13, 1962. He attended school in Sarepta. He graduated from Sarepta High School in May 1980.

Tracy, his birth name, started taking guitar lessons at the age of 10. His teacher was Ron Riley from Springhill. He and a friend of his that played drums performed together in talent shows at the school. The friend, Danny Reeve, always did the singing. Tracy was too shy to sing. When he was in high school, a quartet from New Sarepta Baptist Church asked him to play the guitar with them while they sung. They were practicing for a youth banquet at the church. He began to harmonize with them. They realized that he had a deep bass voice and he started singing with the quartet. This was the beginning of the New Commitment Quartet. They performed for area churches during his high school years and during college.

After college, he married and started working offshore. This cut into his time for singing with the quartet. All the guys had families and jobs, so it made it harder and harder for them to get together. He left the quartet around 1985.

While he was working offshore, he would play his guitar and sing during his off time. A guy that worked with him from South Louisiana played with a band and wanted Trace to join them. He did and later they named their band, "Bayou". He was the lead singer. They traveled all over Texas and New Mexico singing with the band. He was not able to make a living at this, so he quit and came home around 1989.

He had given up on the idea of making it in the music business until, a friend that helped manage the band, Bayou, called and encouraged him to move to Nashville. He moved during the summer of 1991.

He was working on construction and singing at a little club called Tilley's when he was discovered by Scott Hendricks, the President of Capitol records. Scott signed him to a record deal in 1995. His first album, Dreamin Out Loud, was released June 1996 and then his second album, Big Time, in the fall of 1997.

He is now in the studio working on his third album to be released sometime in the fall of 1999.

If you would like to know more about Trace Adkins, you can look him up on http://www.traceadkins.com . You can join his fan club through this web site, find out tour dates, and get news updates on him.