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Gary Nichols may be country music’s new “guitar slinger,” but don’t mistake him for a “tenderfoot”
or a “greenhorn.”
Gary Nichols has been rocking the clubs of Northern Alabama and Southern Tennessee for
nearly a decade. And that’s just his most recent musical history. This is a guy who was given a ukulele at age 11 months,
who was warbling tunes at age 3, who won his first talent contest at age 5, who got his first paying music job and joined
his first band at age 6, who played in honky-tonks at age 7, who was touring regionally at age 13, who performed in Nashville
at age 17 and who had his first recording session at age 19.
Gary Nichols began playing guitar seriously when he was
6 years old. By the time he was 9, he was also proficient on bass and drums. He started playing piano in church at age 12,
and somewhere along the way, he picked up mandolin and trumpet. Oh, and he’s a world-class singer to boot.
In
2003, Gary's band Gulliver, played a private party in Nashville attended by record producer Scott Hendricks. Hendricks knew
that he wanted to work with Gary so he took him into the recording studio late that year. “Gary is the real deal,”
says Hendricks. “He is one of the most talented artists I have ever worked with.”
Hendricks played what
they had recorded for James Stroud, Co-Chairman, Universal Music Group Nashville. He offered Gary a recording contract with
Mercury Records in 2004 and became the record’s co-producer. Stroud says, “Gary Nichols is the ultimate definition
of Dangerous Country.”
“I’ve always known, deep inside, that I wanted to be a musician,” says
Gary Nichols. “Music is what makes me feel alive. And I know in my heart that I will be making music as long as I live.”
All
of these illustrations of his oversized talent appear on his debut collection for Mercury Records.
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