There isn't anything new here but i just thought it was a nice write-up on Randy.

Enjoy.

Randy Travis' Country Drive
BY VINCENT MAO
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10/3/2008
Some teens are rebellious. Randy Traywick was a flat-out hell-raiser.
At age 12, he was already drinking. He moved on to drugs and other unlawful activities.
The ninth-grade dropout got in trouble for fighting, stealing, wrecking cars and
leading cops on chases.
In his teens, Traywick faced a prison sentence that could have put him away for years.
Two things saved him from jail time and his downward spiral: his voice and Elizabeth
"Lib" Hatcher — his future manager and wife.
Better known to most as Randy Travis, he turned his life around and became one of
the biggest stars in country music.
When the genre suffered an identity crisis of crossover artists in the early 1980s,
Travis helped bring country music back to its roots.
With his deep, resonant voice, he belts out real country tunes — songs about blue-collar
life, love and heartache, with twang and all — unlike the pop-influenced crossover
stuff.
Good music you hear; great music you feel. Just listen to Travis profess his everlasting
love in "Forever and Ever, Amen" or reminisce about a former flame in "Diggin' Up
Bones." You might get goose bumps.
Travis is one of the top country singers of all time. He's sold over 25 million albums,
with 22 No. 1 hits.
In the past 25 years, he's earned awards by the truckloads: 10 American Music awards,
nine Academy of Country Music honors, seven Dove Awards, six Grammys, six Country
Music Association honors.
On The Screen
Travis is an accomplished actor, with appearances in TV shows "Touched by an Angel,"
"King of the Hill," "Matlock" and "Sesame Street," and movies "Young Guns," "Black
Dog," "National Treasure 2" and "The Wager."
Thanks mostly to his singing, Randy Travis landed a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame in 2004.
"He was at the right place at the right time with the voice he had, at the right
age," Neil Haislop, founder of CountryForever.com, told IBD.
Randy Bruce Traywick was born in 1959 in rural Marshville, N.C., one of six children.
His dad, Harold Traywick, ran a construction firm, bred horses and raised turkeys.
His mom, Bobbie, worked at a textile mill.
Being a huge country music fan, Harold pushed Randy and his brothers into becoming
musicians early on. He bought them Western outfits and instruments and built a stage
for them to practice on.
Randy started guitar lessons at 8 and two years later began playing gigs with his
older brother Ricky, performing as the Traywick Bros. They played at conventions,
parties, VFW halls — anywhere they could draw a crowd.
While his brothers' interests leaned toward rock 'n' roll, Randy loved country. Hank
Williams Sr., George Jones, Merle Haggard and Lefty Frizzell were his favorites.
"It was just the sound that I liked," he told the State Journal-Register of Springfield,
Ill., in 1999. "The voice and the instrumentation was something I preferred to anything
else."
Long before singers gained fame by winning TV reality shows, they paid their dues
on the long, hard, uncertain road to stardom.
Travis' trip gained speed when he was 16. That's when he won a singing contest at
Country Club USA, a nightclub in Charlotte, N.C.
His performance impressed club owner Lib Hatcher so much, she offered him a job to
play regularly.
"I'll never forget it," Hatcher said in "Randy Travis: The King of the New Traditionalists,"
a book by Don Cusic. "When I heard Randy, I just sort of dropped the papers and thought,
this is something special."
When Hatcher told Travis he could be a star, he believed her. But first, he had a
date with destiny.
At 17, he faced a five-year prison sentence for breaking and entering. Hatcher's
testimony saved him from the slammer.
She told the judge he now had a steady job and was no longer running with rough crowds.
The judge released him into her custody.
With that hurdle cleared, he moved to Charlotte to focus on his singing career, with
Hatcher as his manager. He honed his skills at her club for five years.
Hatcher tried to get the young crooner noticed by having two singles produced out
of her own pocket. But "Dreamin' " and "She's My Woman" went nowhere.
So the duo moved to Nashville, Tenn. — the mecca of country music — in 1981 to get
closer to the action, hoping for a record deal.
Hatcher got a job as manager at the Nashville Palace, a club that drew tourists,
country stars and industry executives.
Travis also found work there. He sang under the name Randy Ray, and cooked and washed
dishes.
Producer and songwriter Keith Stegall, who worked with Travis at the time, told IBD:
"The resistance that we kept getting in town was, 'Oh, he's just too country.' If
you remember, Nashville at that time had become a melting pot of middle-of-the-road
music. Everybody ran off and left their roots."
Except for Travis and a few others. He never gave up his dream.
Stegall remained confident in the young talent.
"After hearing Travis sing 'Reasons I Cheat,' I was dumbfounded, just an incredible
voice, incredible song," Stegall said. "And I knew at that moment that this was going
to be something that was going to be big, that people are going to love if we can
just get it heard."
Although never released as a single, "Reasons I Cheat" accounts an aging, frustrated
man giving in to temptation.
The ballad made it into the Stegall-produced 1983 album "Randy Ray — Live at the
Nashville Palace," which did well on the local scene.
In 1984, Warner Bros. Vice President Martha Sharp learned of Travis and attended
one of his performances at the Nashville Palace. "I had decided that I needed somebody
who was country and didn't want to be anything but country," she later told the Washington
Post.
She signed him a few months later and changed his name to Randy Travis. His first
major label single — "On the Other Hand," released in the summer of 1985 — hit No.
67 on Billboard's top country album chart. His second, "1982," hit No. 6.
Hitting It Big
Warner released his "Storms of Life" album in the summer of 1986. It sold over 4
million copies.
Soon thereafter, Warner re-released "On the Other Hand," giving Travis his first
No. 1 hit.
"I think 'On the Other Hand' will always be his signature song because it was such
a huge hit and had such strength," said Haislop. "If you asked what he'll be remembered
for, it would probably be that song."
"Forever and Ever, Amen" from his second album, "Always and Forever," launched a
streak of seven straight No. 1's.
Travis and Hatcher got married in 1991. Nowadays they have houses in Nashville, New
Mexico and Hawaii.
What's next? Travis, 49, is working on a Christmas DVD.
"He's just a good ol' boy from Marshville, N.C.," said Haislop. "He's always been
very humble, straight to the point, has a good sense of humor and very grateful for
the success he had."

Always and Forever...An RT Fan
Linda and Guide, Greg

Thanks Linda, I agree it is an enjoyable read. I particularly like this statement. "Good music you hear; GREAT MUSIC YOU FEEL." Randy is a MASTER at picking great songs that makes you FEEL every word he sings in the story , with the emotions they were ment to convey!

In reading this and thinking of the industry today, sadly, we've come full circle. It has once again become the "melting pot" for middle of the road music. Dee