Aaron Tippin

Aaron Dupree Tippin (born July 3, 1958) is an American country music singer, songwriter and record producer.

Aaron Dupree Tippin was born July 3, 1958, in Pensacola, Florida.

He was raised on a farm in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, where he went to Blue Ridge High School.

In the 1970s, he made a living as a singer, performing in various local bars.

By the time Tippin was 20, he was working as a commercial pilot, truck driver and a pipe fitter.

In 1986, he moved to Nashville, where he eventually became a staff writer at Acuff-Rose.

He competed on You Can Be a Star, a televised talent show on the former TNN (The Nashville Network).

This led to him earning a song publishing contract in 1987.

During this time he wrote songs for The Kingsmen, David Ball, Mark Collie, and Charley Pride.

Also released from this album were the singles "I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way", "I Was Born with a Broken Heart" (previously a chart single in 1988 for Josh Logan), and "My Blue Angel", which peaked at No. 5, No. 38 and No. 7, respectively, on the country charts.

Read Between the Lines became Tippin's first platinum album.

Initially a songwriter for Acuff-Rose Music, he gained a recording contract with RCA Nashville in 1990.

His debut single, "You've Got to Stand for Something" became a popular anthem for American soldiers fighting in the Gulf War and helped to establish him as a neotraditionalist country act with songs that catered primarily to the American working class.

Under RCA's tenure, he recorded five studio albums and a Greatest Hits package.

Tippin performed his first Nashville nightclub show in 1990, and it earned him a contract with RCA Records Nashville.

His first single, "You've Got to Stand for Something", was released in 1991.

The song, with its message of standing up for one's personal beliefs, became popular as an anthem for soldiers fighting in the Gulf War at the time, and reached a peak of No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts.

It was also the title track to his debut album, released in late 1991.

Although the album was certified gold in the United States, the next two singles performed poorly: "I Wonder How Far It Is Over You" peaked at No. 40, and "She Made a Memory Out of Me" at No. 54.

Brian Mansfield of Allmusic, in his review of the album, said that "This exciting hardcore country comes from a man whose previous blue-collar experience as a farm hand, welder, pilot, and truck driver made him a publicist's dream."

Giving it an "A", Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly praised Tippin's "humor" and "pointed language".

In addition, he has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three Number Ones: "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio" (1992), "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You" (1995), and "Kiss This" (2000), as well as the top ten hits "You've Got to Stand for Something", "I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way", "My Blue Angel", "Workin' Man's Ph.D.", "For You I Will", and "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly".

Tippin's second album, Read Between the Lines, was released in 1992.

Its first single was "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio", which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

In 1993, Tippin released his third studio album, titled Call of the Wild.

It produced three straight Top 40 country hits in "Workin' Man's Ph.D.", the title track, and "Whole Lotta Love on the Line", while "Honky Tonk Superman", the final single, failed to make Top 40.

One year later, Tippin released his fourth album, Lookin' Back at Myself, which produced the No. 15 "I Got It Honest" and the minor Top 40 "She Feels Like a Brand New Man Tonight".

Tool Box, his fifth album for RCA, produced his second Number One country hit in the ballad "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You"; the second single, "Without Your Love", peaked at No. 22, while the album's last two singles both failed to make Top 40.

Like Call of the Wild and Lookin' Back at Myself before it, Tool Box also earned a gold certification from the RIAA.

In 1994 Tippin performed the National Anthem at Starrcade the annual Professional Wrestling Pay Per View Event for World Championship Wrestling.

Tippin's final release for the RCA label, a compilation titled Greatest Hits… and Then Some, was issued in 1997.

This album produced two chart singles which both failed to make Top 40.

Tippin switched to Lyric Street Records in 1998, where he recorded four more studio albums, counting a compilation of Christmas music.

In 1998, Tippin moved to Lyric Street Records, then a newly formed subsidiary label of the Walt Disney Company.

His first single for the label, the No. 6 hit "For You I Will", served as the lead-off to his 1998 album What This Country Needs and became his first Top Ten hit since "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You".

Following it were "I'm Leaving" at No. 17, "Her" at No. 33, and the title track at No. 48.

2000 saw the release of the single "Kiss This".

After leaving Lyric Street in 2006, he founded a personal label known as Nippit Records, on which he issued the compilation album Now & Then.

A concept album, In Overdrive, was released in 2009.

Tippin has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations, with six gold certifications and one platinum certification among them.