Luke Bryan

Singer and songwriter Luke Bryan comes by his country influences naturally -- he grew up in Leesburg, GA, a small town 100 miles from the Alabama border where his father grew peanuts and sold fertilizer for a living. Bryan helped his family work the farm when he was young, but in his early teens he developed a passion for country music, picking up his influences from his parents' record collection, listening to the likes of George Strait, Conway Twitty, Ronnie Milsap, Alan Jackson, and Merle Haggard. When he was 14, his folks bought Bryan his first guitar, and a year later his playing and singing was strong enough that he started sitting in with local bands at a club featuring live country music.