Dierks Bentley

Growing up in a non-musical family in Phoenix, Arizona, country singer Dierks Bentley got his country music education on his own, listening to records. A love of the music inspired him to move to Nashville at the age of 19, but he quickly grew discouraged by the lack of public and professional interest coming his way. It all changed when he walked into the Station Inn, a bar where the bluegrass faithful hung out. An all-night jam session recharged his batteries and he again started pursuing gigs. He landed a job at the TNN television network doing research on classic country music, and by night he worked on his demos. Capitol Records finally heard the artist, signed him, and released his self-titled debut, Dierks Bentley, in 2003. It yielded the impossibly catchy single “What Was I Thinkin'?”

Bentley's sixth album, Home, released in 2012, featured a dozen new songs that the singer road-tested on tour. It was an eclectic and varied affair, with guest spots from Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild as well as Tim O'Brien and Sam Bush, among others. Capitol issued his self-funded EP, Country and Cold Cans, that summer, and before long he had begun sessions for what would be his seventh full-length release for the label in 11 years. A second single, “I Hold On,” quickly followed and went into the Top Ten. Bentley then released Riser. The album debuted at number one on Billboard's Country charts — it went to six on the Top 200 — and generated three major hits: “I Hold On” and “Drunk on a Plane,” which both peaked at three on the U.S. Hot Country chart and went platinum, and “Say You Do” which topped out at five. The title track sustained momentum on radio in 2015, and in early 2016, he returned with “Somewhere on a Beach,” the first single from his eighth album, Black. It topped Billboard's country charts just prior to the May 2016 release of Black.