Aaron Dupree Tippin (born July 3, 1958 in Pensacola, Florida[2]) is an American country music artist and record producer. Initially a songwriter for Acuff-Rose Music, he gained a recording contract with RCA Records in 1990. His debut single, "You've Got to Stand for Something" became a popular anthem for American soldiers fighting in the Gulf War and helped to establish him as a neotraditionalist country act with songs that catered primarily to the American working class. Under RCA's tenure, he recorded five studio albums and a Greatest Hits package. By the later half of the 1990s, however, his sales and chart performance began to decline, and he was dropped from the label's roster.
Tippin switched to Lyric Street Records in 1998, where he recorded four more studio albums, counting a compilation of Christmas music. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he released the patriotic anthem "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly"; although it was his most successful crossover single, he saw his popularity decline a second time after its release. After parting ways with Lyric Street in 2006, he founded a personal label known as Nippit Records, on which he issued the compilation album Now & Then. A concept album, In Overdrive, was released in 2009.
Tippin has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations, with five gold certifications and one platinum certification among them. In addition, he has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three Number Ones: "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio" (1992), "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You" (1995), and "Kiss This" (2000), as well as the Top Ten hits "You've Got to Stand for Something", "I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way", "My Blue Angel", "Working Man's Ph.D", "For You I Will", and "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly".
Biography
Aaron Tippin was born in Pensacola, Florida, but raised in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, where he went to Blue Ridge High School. In the 1970s, he made a living as a singer, performing in various local bars. He competed on TNN's You Can Be a Star talent contest in 1986, landed a song publishing contract and moved to Nashville in 1987. During this time he wrote songs for The Kingsmen, David Ball, Mark Collie, and Charley Pride. He would spend his nights working at Logan Aluminum in Logan County, Kentucky and spend his days driving 60 miles to Nashville to write songs. He is married to his wife Thea, and with her they have two sons named Teddy and Thomas
Starstruck Entertainment
Aaron Tippin sign on to Starstruck Entertainment agency division, joining Linda Davis and others. Aaron Tippin's boss was owner of Starstruck Reba Mcentire who would appear in Aaron's 1994 video "Honky Tonk Superman". Aaron parted ways with Starstruck in 1997.
Musical career
1991-1997: RCA Records
Tippin performed his first Nashville nightclub show in 1990, and it earned him a contract with RCA Records Nashville. His first single, "You've Got to Stand for Something", was released in 1991. The song, with its message of standing up for one's personal beliefs, became popular as an anthem for soldiers fighting in the Gulf War at the time,[3] and reached a peak of #6 on the Billboard country charts. It was also the title track to his debut album, released in late 1991. Certified gold in the United States, the album also produced the #40 hit "I Wonder How Far It Is Over You" and the #54 "She Made a Memory out of Me".
Tippin's second album, Read Between the Lines, was released in 1992. Its first single, the novelty track "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio", became his first Number One hit, spending three weeks at the top of the country charts. Also released from this album were the singles "I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way", "I Was Born with a Broken Heart" (previously a chart single in 1988 for Josh Logan), and "My Blue Angel", which peaked at #5, #38 and #7, respectively, on the country charts. Read Between the Lines became Tippin's first platinum album.
1993 saw the release of his third studio album, titled Call of the Wild. It produced three straight Top 40 country hits in "Workin' Man's Ph.D.", the title track, and "Whole Lotta Love on the Line", while "Honky Tonk Superman", the final single, failed to make Top 40. One year later, Tippin released his fourth album, Lookin' Back at Myself, which produced the #15 "I Got It Honest" and the minor Top 40 "She Feels Like a Brand New Man Tonight".
In 1995, Tippin married the former Thea Corontzos. Along with his manager, Billy Craven, Aaron and Thea Tippin created Tippin's company, Tip Top Entertainment. Tippin also opened two hunting supply stores called Aaron Tippin Firearms: one in Smithville, Tennessee, and the other was run by his late father, Willis Emory Tippin, in Oak City, North Carolina. (Willis died in 2005.) 1995 also saw the release of Tippin's fifth studio album for RCA. Titled Tool Box, it produced his second Number One country hit in the ballad "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You"; the second single, "Without Your Love", peaked at #22, while the album's last two singles both failed to make Top 40. Like Call of the Wild and Lookin' Back at Myself before it, Tool Box also earned a gold certification from the RIAA.
Tippin's final release for the RCA label, a compilation titled Greatest Hits… and Then Some, was issued in 1996. This album produced two chart singles which both failed to make Top 40, and by the end of the year, he exited the label.
1998-2005: Lyric Street
In 1998, Tippin moved to Lyric Street Records, then a newly-formed subsidiary label of the Walt Disney Company. His first single for the label, the #6 hit "For You I Will", served as the lead-off to his 1998 album What This Country Needs and became his first Top Ten hit since "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You". Following it were "I'm Leaving" at #17, "Her" at #33, and the title track at #48.
2000 saw the release of the single "Kiss This". Co-written by Tippin with his wife, Thea, the song went to the top of the Billboard country charts, becoming his third and final Number One hit. It served as the lead-off to his second Lyric Street album, People Like Us, and the David Lee Murphy-penned title track reached Top 20 in 2001. People Like Us was also certified gold.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he released the patriotic-themed song "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly". His biggest crossover hit, the song reached #2 on the country charts and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was included on his album Stars & Stripes, which was released in early 2002 (following the release of his Christmas album A December to Remember). Stars & Stripes produced three more singles, including the ballad "Love Like There's No Tomorrow", a duet with Thea.
Tippin's last release for Lyric Street was a single entitled "Come Friday", which was slated to be included on an album entitled I Believed. The single peaked at #42 on the country charts, and I Believed was not released; by 2005, he had exited Lyric Street.
2006-present
In 2006, Tippin formed his own record label, Nippit Records, in a joint partnership with Rust Nashville. His first release for the album, Aaron Tippin: Now & Then, produced the singles "Ready to Rock (In a Country Kind of Way)" and "He Believed", the latter of which peaked at #55 on the country charts. On September 9, 2007, Aaron released a new single called "Drill Here, Drill Now" which was inspired by the "Drill Here" movement led by Newt Gingrich at his American Solutions organization.
Tippin signed to Country Crossing Records in 2008. His first album for the label, In Overdrive, was released in February 2009. This album comprises covers of country songs that have truck driving themes. On Oct.31 2009 he was at the Davey Allison Memorial Park at the induction ceremony in Talladega , Alabama .
Musical style
Tippin's singing voice is a baritone, characterized by a nasal Southern twang.[4] His phrasing has been compared to Hank Williams for "the catch in the throat, followed by a sliding moan", as described by Entertainment Weekly reviewer Alanna Nash in her review of Tippin's debut.[5]
Several of Tippin's songs, such as "Workin' Man's Ph.D" and "You've Got to Stand for Something", are mid-tempo anthems that address the working class, and are often patriotic in nature.[2] Occasionally, Tippin records love-themed ballads, such as "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You". Other songs of his, such as "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio" and "Honky Tonk Superman", are honky tonk-influenced novelties.
Discography
References
- Oermann, Robert K. (1998). "Aaron Tippin". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 540–1.
External links
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