Stephanie Bentley

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Stephanie Kay Bentley (born April 29, 1963 in Thomasville, Georgia) is an American country music artist. She made her debut in 1996 as a duet partner on Ty Herndon's single "Heart Half Empty", which peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. The single was included both on Herndon's 1995 debut album What Mattered Most and on Bentley's 1996 debut album Hopechest. It produced three more singles for her on the country charts, although only one ("Who's That Girl") reached Top 40.

Bentley never recorded an album or charted a single after the release of Hopechest. However, she did find success as a songwriter, having penned Faith Hill's 1999 crossover single "Breathe", as well as Martina McBride's 2002 Top 5 hit "Concrete Angel". She has also co-written album cuts for Céline Dion, Pam Tillis and Jo Dee Messina,^[1] and recorded a song to the soundtrack for the film Holes.

Biography

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Bentley's musical interests began at age nine, when she, her sister, and a friend entered and won a talent contest. The three later toured briefly as a musical group, even singing for Jimmy Carter, who was President of the United States at the time.^[2] In 1984, she formed a band called Special Delivery.^[3]

She later moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she worked as a demo singer. One of the songs for which she sang a demo was "Shake the Sugar Tree", which later became a Top 5 hit when Pam Tillis recorded it for her 1992 album Homeward Looking Angel. Bentley's demo vocals were dubbed into Tillis' recording of the song.^[3][2]

After a failed deal with Liberty Records which produced no albums or singles, Bentley signed to Epic Records in 1995. Her first chart entry in 1996 was as a duet partner on Ty Herndon's single "Heart Half Empty" (from his debut album What Mattered Most) which peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts.^[3] "Heart Half Empty" was followed by her first solo release for Epic, "Who's That Girl", which peaked at #32. This was the first single from her debut album Hopechest, issued by Epic that year. The album produced three more singles after "Who's That Girl", although these latter three singles—"Once I was the Light of Your Life", "The Hopechest Song" and "Dead Ringer"—all failed to make Top 40.

Although Bentley never charted or recorded an album after 1997, she found success writing songs for others, nost notably "Breathe" by Faith Hill, which spent six weeks at the top of the Billboard country music charts in late 1999-early 2000 and became the Number One song of 2000 on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end countdown.^[4] Bentley also co-wrote Martina McBride's 2002 hit "Concrete Angel" with Rob Crosby, as well as Gloriana's 2009 debut single "Wild at Heart" with Josh Kear and Matt Serletic.

In 2002, Bentley married Brian Prout, drummer for the band Diamond Rio.^[5] Bentley also contributed the song "I Will Survive" to the soundtrack of the 2003 film Holes.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Guest singles

References