Luke Bryan

One of the most consistently popular country artists of the late 2000s and '10s, Luke Bryan became a superstar by adapting to the times as he went along, nailing the Nashville zeitgeist with startling regularity. Born on July 17, 1976 in Leesburg, Georgia, Bryan eventually made his way to Music City, where he first connected as a songwriter. His songs were cut by artists like Travis Tritt and Billy Currington before he released his first album, 2007's I'll Stay Me, on Capitol Nashville. The record went Gold and gave Bryan a No. 5 single with "All My Friends Say." As auspicious a beginning as that was, 2009's Doin' My Thing broke Bryan even bigger, going Platinum and bringing two No. 1 country hits, "Rain is a Good Thing" and "Someone Else Calling You Baby." Even that was a drop in the bucket compared to Bryan's next album, Tailgates and Tanlines, which began to add hip-hop/R&B-inflected dance grooves to his sound and eventually went Platinum six times over, generating the mega-hits "Country Girl (Shake It for Me)," "I don't Want This Night to End," and "Drunk on You." After that, No. 1 albums (on both the country and pop charts) and singles became the norm for Bryan, who remained one of country music's biggest names for many years to come. Along the way he won boatloads of awards from the Academy of Country Music and others. In 2018 Bryan's profile expanded even further when he became a regular TV presence as one of the judges on the rebooted "American Idol" (ABC 2018- ).