- Country music singer and guitarist born Jason Aldine Williams in 1977 from Macon Georgia.
- His father taught him how to play chords on the guitar, and he would practice until he could play a song after hearing it a few times. At age 14, after watching a country music awards program, he decided that he wanted to perform, and his mother arranged for him to play at the VFW in Macon. At 15, he was in a country band. After high school, his band played at clubs in the Southeast. In 1996, Aldean recorded an 8 song CD that he would sell at concerts. In 1998, after performing at a festival in Atlanta, he was approached by a publishing company. He signed a deal and moved to Nashville.
- Two proposed recording contracts over several years fell through without a deal, and Aldean became discouraged, planning to move back to Georgia. In 2005, he finally was signed to an independent label, and he released his debut album, the self-titled Jason Aldean. It was a big success – certified platinum in sales, 3 singles reached the Country Top 10, with Why peaking at #1 and Amarillo Sky peaking at #4. After years of obscurity, he finally made it.
- Aldean’s follow-up album, Relentless, was released in 2007. The album topped the Country Albums chart, and the singles Johnny Cash and Laughed Until We Cried both peaked at #6 on the Country chart.
- By this time, his music was evolving to a country sound with lots of rock music influence, combining fiddle with hard rock guitar riffs. In 2009, he released the album Wide Open – 3 singles from the album topped the Country chart – She’s Country, Big Green Tractor and The Truth. This began a string of 23 consecutive singles that would reach the top 10, with 14 of these songs reaching either #1 or #2.
- He opened the 10s decade with his biggest selling album, My Kinda Party. The album was 4x platinum, and it contained his best selling single, Dirt Road Anthem. This is his only song that cracked the top 10 on the crossover Hot 100 chart, peaking at #7 – and of course, it was #1 on the Country chart. He broke new ground in that through much of the song, he raps the lyrics instead of singing them. His duet with Kelly Clarkson, Don’t You Wanna Stay, also was a huge hit, reaching #1 on the Country chart and #31 on the Hot 100. The song was selected as Musical Event of the Year by the Country Music Association.
- Aldean’s next 3 albums – 2012’s Night Train, 2014’s Old Boots, New Dirt and 2016’s They Don’t Know, all were #1 albums on the crossover Billboard 200 album chart. Singles included the best seller Burnin’ It Down, and the chart topping Take A Little Ride. Old Boots, New Dirt was 1 of only 3 albums released in 2014 that have been certified platinum – platinum albums have become rare since most music lovers either stream songs or download single songs instead of full albums (the other artists with platinum albums from 2014 were Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande).
- On October 7, 2017, Aldean and his band were performing in Las Vegas at a country music festival when an assassin in a nearby hotel began firing his automatic weapon into the crowd, killing 58 people and injuring 851 people. Aldean escaped unharmed, and the following Saturday, he appeared on Saturday Night Live to express his condolences. He then performed I Won’t Back Down, in tribute to Tom Petty, who had died the day after the Las Vegas shootings.
- His most recent album, Rearview Town, was released in April 2018. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart – Aldean is only the second country artist to have 4 consecutive albums debut at #1 on the crossover chart (Rascal Flatts was the first to achieve this). The first single from the record, You Make It Easy, peaked at #2 on the Country chart.
- He has won 28 awards from the various country music associations that put out awards programs. There is no sign of Jason Aldean losing any popularity as he continues to dominate country music today. He is one of the first country artists to use rock & roll, as well as to rap, with his country music – but there is no mistaking, this is not rock or rap music – there is plenty of country twang to his music. His music video for You Make It Easy actually is 3 videos – the first kicks off with a man in a serious car accident, and the second and third videos take us through the story of what happens to the man. Take the 15 minutes to watch all 3.