Lee Greenwood

Lee Greenwood is one of country music’s best-known voices, but his path to stardom was a circuitous and unusual one. Born in South Gate, California, in 1943, he started out as a soul singer, fronting The Apollos (who later became The Lee Greenwood Affair) in the early ’60s. Later in the decade, they released singles for Dot Records that didn’t make much commercial impact. By the ’70s, he was working a day job as a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, until Mel Tillis’s bandleader heard him sing and helped him get a Nashville record deal. Starting with his 1982 debut album, Inside Out, he brought a soulful delivery to emotional country ballads, scoring a long string of hits in the process. His song “God Bless the U.S.A.” originally charted in his home country in 1984, but over the years it has become a country standard, a patriotic anthem and Greenwood’s signature song.