Brantley Gilbert

In 2012, it was officially announced that Brantley Gilbert was dating Jana Kramer, a well-known country singer. However, they parted ways in August 2013, after being engaged for a few months.

In June 2015, he married Amber Cochran, a schoolteacher from Georgia. Amber and Brantley are blessed with a son.

Brantley Gilbert was born on 20 January, 1985 in Georgia, USA. He was exposed to music right from his childhood, as his parents would often listen to country music. He gradually developed a liking towards music and eventually made up his mind to choose a career in music.

At the age of 13, he started taking his childhood dream of becoming a musician seriously. He started off by writing original songs and then went on to compose music while he was still in his school. He didn’t do very well academically and hence, his grades started to take a beating. But nothing stopped him from spending most of his time in creating music and writing new songs.

He somehow managed to finish his high school education, after which he had a sudden change of heart and decided to make music only as a hobby. He then enrolled himself at Georgia College & State University where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in marriage and relationship counselling. After completing his education, he started working at a counselling firm in Georgia.

At the age of 19, he met with a major accident which erased most of his memories. This brought an end to his counselling career and he suffered from depression for a very long period of time. This forced him to focus on music and he later claimed that writing songs and making music was all he needed to bring his memories back.

He then started playing at local bars and clubs, in an attempt to be discovered. But when he was rejected by a lot of companies, he decided to join hands with an independent music label known as ‘Average Joes Entertainment’.

Brantley started his music career by performing the opening acts at various concerts that featured country musicians. By the end of 2006, he had finished working on his debut album, ‘Modern Day Prodigal Son’. But he struggled for years to get his album released before ‘Average Joes Entertainment’ released it in 2009.

His debut album was appreciated by the critics. However, since ‘Average Joes Entertainment’ was an independent label, it had its own limitations and couldn’t take the album far and wide. Hence the album did not get the exposure that it actually deserved. But it did manage to reach some major country singers, such as Colt Ford and Jason Aldean who were impressed by Brantley’s lyrics. They then hired Brantley to write the lyrics of their respective songs.

By the end of 2010, he had finished working on his second album which was ready to be released. ‘Average Joes Entertainment’ stepped forward and released the album. But once again, it did not reach many as the marketing strategies of the music label were not up to the mark. He then started to look for a better option and eventually struck a deal with ‘Valory Music Group’, a division of ‘Big Machine Records’. His second album was then re-released to a wider audience.

The first single from the album, ‘Country Must Be Country Wide’, became a success and topped the US Country Songs Billboard Charts. The second single ‘You don’t know her like I do’ started slow, but eventually reached the top 5 positions of the chart. The song became extremely popular as it went on to bag the Single of the Year award under the category, Breakthrough Artist of the Year, at the 2012 American Country Awards.

Another single titled ‘Kick it in the Sticks’ was released subsequently. Although it wasn’t as successful as the previous two singles, Brantley received accolades for his song writing skills. ‘More than Miles’, yet another single from the album became a hit and Brantley went on to win the ACM New Male Artist Award in 2013.