The duo's songs have been used by President George W Bush as his official campaign songs in both his election and re-election campaigns. In 2006, the duo opened for the Rolling Stones at their Omaha, Nebraska show. Their latest Deuces Wild tour of 2005 featured fellow country duo Big and Rich. Recent tours have featured Australian country singer Keith Urban, fellow duo Montgomery Gentry, and successful country newcomer Gretchen Wilson. Dunn's vocal performances have tended to be released as radio singles: recent hits "You Can't Take the Honkytonk Out of The Girl," "Red Dirt Road," "It's Getting Better All The Time," "That's What It's All About," "Play Something Country," and "Believe" all feature Ronnie Dunn singing lead vocals.īrooks & Dunn are renowned for their high-energy stage shows. Ronnie Dunn co-wrote country superstar Toby Keith's song "Don't Leave I Think I Love You" which appeared on his 2003 album Shock'n Y'all. Both artists have served as song-writers for other artists too. One or both artists writes or co-writes a large majority of their material, and self-penned successes include the 2004 smash "Red Dirt Road" which the duo wrote together.
One of their hits, "Boot Scootin' Boogie" - the video for which was made in Tulsa, Oklahoma - is most emblematic of this style.īoth band members write, sing, and play guitar. As of 2004, they have won 19 CMA awards and remain the foremost duo in their genre.īrooks & Dunn's music covers the full range of modern country music, and their chart-topping hits have included everything from the Ronan Keating-penned ballad "The Long Goodbye," through the Rivers Rutherford-written "Ain't Nothing About You," to the gospel music-influenced "Believe." They are also associated with being pioneers of the line dance craze of the mid-1990s.
Other notable awards include the CMA Album of the Year award for 1994 and the Entertainer of the Year for 1996. Known as providing one the defining sounds of modern country, they have since won the Vocal Duo Award of the Country Music Association every year between 19, with the exception of 2000 in which southern rock duo Montgomery Gentry took the honor. Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn debuted as Brooks & Dunn in 1991. 1 hits and sold 27 million records.Brooks & Dunn are a country singer-songwriter duo, the most successful in t… Read Full Bio ↴ Brooks & Dunn are a country singer-songwriter duo, the most successful in the history of the musical genre. The move was genius together the duo have scored 21 No. “I didn’t know a middle ground.”īut in 1990, Arista Records’ Tim DuBois urged Dunn to join forces with another struggling solo artist, and Brooks & Dunn was born. “When I was growing up I gravitated from one extreme to the other,” says Dunn, whose father died in 1986, before his son’s music career took off. He describes his father as a hard drinker who dreamed of being a country singer and his mother as a Bible-quoting teetotaler. Dunn, in particular, felt a strong tug in opposite directions. It closes with the bluesy ballad “Again,” a Darrell Brown/Radney Foster-penned tune with a chorus that’s almost impossible not to hum.īoth men say the songs reflect the extremes of their rearing. The album is produced by Tony Brown, who’s worked with everyone from Steve Earle to Reba McEntire. The first single, “Play Something Country,” and “She Likes to Get Out of Town” are foot-stomping fun, and Dunn even raps on the title track: “Put on the smell good / Put on the Skynyrd / Head into town like / A NASCAR winner.”
Thematically, a song like “Whiskey Do My Talkin,”‘ a dark rocker in which a guy draws his courage from a bottle, and “Believe,” a soulful affirmation of life after death, is a long way from the 1992 dance smash “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” or the 1996 chart topper “My Maria.”īut the new songs aren’t all heavy. Sheryl Crow and Vince Gill sing background on “Building Bridges,” a mid-tempo, radio-friendly song. Individually or collectively, Brooks and Dunn wrote nine of the 13 tracks on “Hillbilly Deluxe.” Songs such as “My Heart’s Not a Hotel,” “One More Roll of the Dice,” “Her West Was Wilder” and “Just Another Neon Night,” echo the loose, rootsy rock they grew up with.