Garth Brooks Biography

Country singer. Born Troyal Garth Brooks, on February 7, 1962, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Brooks got his start in music singing in bars and clubs while attending Oklahoma State University. In 1987, he moved to Nashville for the second time--his first attempt was unsuccessful--with his wife, Sandy, to try to make it in country music. With help from Bob Doyle, who came onboard to manage Brooks along with Pam Lewis, Brooks was signed by Capitol Records. His early hits include "If Tomorrow Never Comes" and "The Dance."

Although sales of Brooks’s first album, Garth Brooks, were strong, it would have been hard to predict the amazing success Brooks' releases have since achieved. His second effort, No Fences sold more than 700,000 copies in its first ten days on the market. His third, Ropin' the Wind racked in a record-breaking 4 million orders before its release and became the first album by a country singer to debut at number one on the Billboard pop charts. His 1998 release, Garth Brooks Double Live sold over one million copies in its first week of sales, breaking the previous record. To date, Brooks has sold more than 100 million albums in his career.

Brooks's live concerts have also been extremely successful. An August 7, 1997, concert in New York City's Central Park drew an estimated 250,000 to 1 million people.

Brooks startled many in 1999 by releasing In the Life of Chris Gaines, an album featuring Brooks as a fictional Australian grunge rocker. Panned by critics, the album had mediocre sales (by Brooks' previous standards) and was purportedly the soundtrack to an upcoming film about Gaines titled The Lamb. He rebounded from the setback by winning three American Music Awards in January 2000, including Artist of the Decade, Favorite Male Country Artist, and Favorite Country Album (1999's Double Live).

Brooks had announced his impending retirement at the end of 2000, saying that he wants to spend more time with his wife, Sandy, and three daughters, Taylor Mayne Pearl (born 1992), August Anna (1994), and Allie Colleen (1996), though in October 2000 announced the couple's divorce. He married fellow country singer Trisha Yearwood in 2005.

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