Ryan Adams

After fronting the North Carolina-based Whiskeytown for five years, Ryan Adams went solo in 1999 and became one of the most popular and critically acclaimed artists to emerge from the Nineties alternative-country scene. Notorious for his hard-drinking and mercurial temper, Adams nonetheless managed to turn out a prodigious catalog of acclaimed music ranging from gentle folk to soulful rock to abrasive punk.

David Ryan Adams was born in the military town of Jacksonville, North Carolina. When he was nine, his father left and he was raised by his mother, an English teacher. Adams was a reader and has said Edgar Allen Poe's work inspired him to write short stories by the time he was eight-years -old. As a teen, he discovered maverick writers like Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller and learned to play guitar. Adams dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and played with a series of punk bands in before moving to Raleigh, NC, and forming Whiskeytown with singer and violinist Caitlin Cary. The band's 1996 debut album, Faithless Street, produced by former dB's front man Chris Stamey, was well received by critics who likened Whiskeytown's sound to that of Uncle Tupelo, with a heavy debt to Sixties country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons. Whiskeytown signed with Outpost Records, a subsidiary of Geffen, and released Stranger's Almanac in 1997. By the time Whiskeytown went into the studio in 1999 to record its third album, Pneumonia Adams and Cary were the only original members left. The album was shelved during the merger of Universal and PolyGram and Outpost closed its doors.

Adams, meanwhile, went into a Nashville studio with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings to record his first solo album Heartbreaker which came out on the independent alternative-country label Bloodshot Records in 2000. The album was hailed for its songwriting and musical balance of country, folk and classic-sounding rock. Comparisons to Gram Parsons continued further after Emmylou Harris, Parson's music partner, harmonized with Adams on the song "Oh My Sweet Carolina." When Pneumonia surfaced the following year on Lost Highway Records it was seen more as an Adams solo album than a Whiskeytown release.

During the oughts Adams was extremely prolific turning out roughly an album a year, with even more songs surfacing on bootlegs on his Website. In 2001, he released Gold (Number 59, 2001), which sold more than 360,000 copies in the U.S. and produced the minor hit "New York, New York," which was played regularly on MTV after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Artists ranging from country superstar Tim McGraw to Bono coveredGold's "When the Stars Go Blue." The album received two Grammy nominations: Best Rock Album and Best Male Rock Vocal for the single; and Adams was nominated for Best Male Country Vocal for a version of Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues" that appeared on a tribute album.

He followed with Demolition (Number 28, 2002), which was culled from two shelved albums, 48 Hours and The Suicide Handbook, both of which have been heavily bootlegged. That year he appeared with Elton John, who had been talking about Adams' inspiration on his own recent music, on CMT's Crossroads. In 2003, Adams recorded songs for two more albums, Rock N Roll (Number 33, 2003) and Love is Hell Part 1 (Number 78, 2003) and Part 2, which he split into two EPs. The former featured such guests as Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, and the latter EP included songs seemingly influenced by the anguished British pop of the Smiths. An acoustic cover version of the Oasis hit "Wonderwall," earned Adams another Grammy nomination. In 2004 Lost Highway released the two Love is Hell EPs as one album.

When Adams released three albums in 2005 — the double-disc Cold Roses (Number 26, 2005) and Jacksonville City Nights (Number 33, 2005), both backed by his new band the Cardinals, and the solo piano album 29 — some suggested the singer-songwriter needed an editor. But Adams was still critically lauded for his expert songwriting, some even calling Cold Roses his Exile on Main Street. Grammy-winner Norah Jones appeared on Jacksonville City Nights. That year, Adams also befriended Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who performed with Adams on some of his Phil Lesh and Friends concert dates and also began including several songs from Cold Roses as part of his own repertoire. Adams contributed three songs to the Elizabethtown Soundtrack in 2005.

Adams didn't officially release a new album in 2006 but posted eleven albums worth of material under various pseudonyms on his Website including hip-hop songs under the name DJ Reggie. He also produced Willie Nelson's Songbird album that year, and he and his band the Cardinals backed him in concert. In 2007, Adams released the EP Follow the Lights (Number 40, 2007) and appeared on Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Revisited, a re-recording of their 1988 album The Trinity Session. He also released his highest charting album to date, Easy Tiger (Number Seven, 2007). He has said he will release an album of old-style "crooner" songs in 2008.

Adams has been linked with a series of famous women during his career, including relationships with Winona Ryder, Alanis Morissette, Beth Orton, Leona Naess, Carrie Hamilton and Parker Posey. He also has suffered substance abuse problems, but revealed in 2006 he had kicked drugs and alcohol.