Rodney Atkins
Image:Rodney Atkins.jpg
Background information
Born	March 28 1969 (1969--) (age 38)
Origin	Cumberland Gap, Tennessee,  USA
Genre(s)	Country music
Occupation(s)	singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)	acoustic guitar, vocals
Years active	1997-present
Label(s)	Curb Records
Associated acts	Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Garth Brooks
Website	http://www.rodneyatkins.com/

Rodney Atkins (born March 28, 1969, in Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American country music singer-songwriter. Signed to Curb Records since 1997, Atkins charted his first single that same year. He did not chart again until late 2002 with the single "Sing Along". Atkins eventually landed his first Top Five hit on the country music charts in 2004, with the single "Honesty (Write Me a List)" from his album Honesty.

After a year-long hiatus from the charts, Atkins landed his first Number One single in 2006 with "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)", which spent four weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, and was declared Billboard's Number One country music song for the year 2006. His platinum-certified second album, If You're Going Through Hell, also released in 2006, has since produced two more Number One singles in "Watching You" and "These Are My People".

Biography

Atkins was adopted in infancy. As an infant at the Holston Methodist Home for Children in Greeneville, Tennessee, he was so sick that two couples who had taken him home returned him just a few days later. A third couple from Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, adopted him as well and, even though his ailments worsened, refused to give him up. His adoptive mother had been raised in a coal mining family near a tannery camp, and his dad survived an upbringing marked by poverty and episodes of abuse.

During high school, Atkins played guitar in his spare time at events and festivals. He went to college at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee, where he worked various jobs in order to pay for his education. He also went into Nashville to play gigs and write songs.

Rodney has a wife and has a 5-year-old son named Elijah, who is featured in the video for Rodney's song "Watching You." His son was 4 years old at time of filming.

Rodney charted his first single, "In a Heartbeat", in 1997. He also recorded an eponymous album that year, although the album was later shelved. In 2002, Atkins entered the Top 40 on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts for the first time with the single "Sing Along"; both "Sing Along" and its followup, "My Old Man", peaked in the low 30s on the country charts. Atkins' first Top 5 hit came in late 2003-early 2004 with the "Honesty (Write Me a List)", which reached a peak of #4. The single was followed by the release of his album Honesty. The follow-up single to "Honesty", titled "Someone to Share It With" stalled just shy of the Top 40, and Atkins was absent from the charts for over a year. In 2006, he released the single "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)", which slowly climbed to Number One on the Billboard country charts, a position that it held for four weeks. "If You're Going Through Hell" went on to become Billboard's Number One country music single for the year 2006. The single was followed by the release of Atkins' album If You're Going Through Hell, which has since produced two additional Number One singles in "Watching You" and "These Are My People". The album's fourth single, "Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy)" was released in September of 2007.

Charitable efforts

Madeleine Rose Trudel (1999-2006), a young girl from St. Clair, Michigan, was dying of cancer when on October 25, Atkins gave Maddie a private concert in her hospital room. Atkins learned about Maddie when somebody sent him a link to the Free Press series about Maddie and her illness. He sang "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)", his signature song as well as Maddie's favorite song.

Awards

• Academy of Country Music
  • 2006 Top New Male Vocalist

Discography

Albums

• ^A Unreleased album.
• ^B Also peaked at #47 on Top Heatseekers.

Singles

• ^A Current single.

Links

• Official Website
• Rodney Atkins' latest bio, news, photo galleries, and Fan Q&A at Great American Country
• Rodney Atkins on CMT.com

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