But the biggest sign of Brooks’s unprecedented ascent to stardom came when both major country awards shows named Brooks Entertainer of the Year, a feat never accomplished by an artist only two years into a recording career. The awards picked up their pace, too: the #1 hit “Friends in Low Places” won Single of the Year honors from both the CMA and ACM, and both organizations also named No Fences the year’s best album.

First came the prophetic Horizon Award from the Country Music Association, as well as a Music Video of the Year honor for his soul-baring single “The Dance.” The Academy of Country Music also honored “The Dance” with Song and Country Music Video of the Year awards.īrooks’s next album, No Fences, pushed him over the top, selling more than sixteen million copies by July 1998. In 1989, Brooks released his self-titled first album, produced by Allen Reynolds, who encouraged Brooks to use a more relaxed, natural singing style. However, two years later, after marrying his first wife, Sandy Mahl, Brooks returned to Nashville and, in 1988, signed with Capitol Records. His first trip to Nashville, in 1985, ended in disappointment, and he returned to Oklahoma. That combination of bedrock country, sensitive songwriting, and theatrical rock would come together when Brooks hit the world’s stage.īrooks started performing while attending Oklahoma State University. Growing up in a music-loving family, Brooks heard the traditional country music of Merle Haggard and George Jones from his father and mother the introspective singer-songwriter works of James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg from his siblings and the arena-rock dynamics of bands such as Queen and Kiss from his friends. His sister Betsy could play a variety of stringed instruments and was another influence (and later a member of his band). Brooks followed in the musical footsteps of his mother, Colleen, who appeared on the Ozark Jubilee in the 1950s and recorded briefly for Capitol Records as Colleen Carroll. He was named for his father, Troyal, who taught him his first guitar chords and the value of hard work. The youngest of six children, Garth Brooks was born Troyal Garth Brooks on February 7, 1962, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Garth Brooks created a seismic shift in the popularity and perception of country music when he rocketed to stardom in the early 1990s.

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