JEFF CARSON
Born
December 16, 1964, in Tulsa, Okla., Jeff was actually raised in
the small Arkansas town of Gravette. As a child, he sang in church
and played harmonica and guitar. While in high school, he
and his friends formed a band to play their school's talent show,
performing the Eagles' "Seven Bridges Road." Winning second
place convinced Jeff Carson to pursue a musical career.
After graduation, he entered a talent contest
at an entertainment complex called Ozark Mountain Music in Rogers,
Ark. Although he didn't come in first, the winner asked Carson to
play in his house band. For the next four years, he played with
the outfit, until they finally disbanded.
Jeff then moved to Branson, Mo, playing bass in local
bands and he began writing his own songs. In Branson, he met and
married his wife, Kim Cooper, who encouraged him to move to
Nashville. Kim had a friend who played at the Opryland Hotel and
his group Texana needed a bassist -- so they moved to Music
City in 1989.
After some persuasion, he convinced the hotel to
book him as a solo act. Around the same time, he signed a
songwriting deal with Little Big Town Music and began singing on
demo tapes for a variety of companies. Eventually,
publisher-producer Chuck Howard heard Carson's original material
and signed a publishing and development deal with him.
By 1994,
Carson signed with Curb Records and released his first self-titled
album in early 1995. The second single on the album, "Not
on Your Love", rocketed to No. 1 and Jeff soon
followed that up with Top 10 hits "The
Car" and "Holdin' On to
Somethin'."
Several releases that failed to sell
well followed and Jeff's career went into a bit of a slump.
In 2001, "Real Life (I Never Was the
Same Again)" was released, and Jeff was back on the
charts.
While Jeff is in many ways a veteran of the music industry, he
knows that it takes hard work to duplicate those early successes.
Over the past few years, he has been honing his craft as a
songwriter. "I've got some writing that I'm real proud of,
but I'm probably harder on myself than anybody when it comes to
really liking songs I write," Jeff says. "To me, I'd
like to have other artists cut some of my songs. That's really
flattering." Jeff got that chance when Kenny Rogers
cut, "Until Forever's Gone," a song co-written with Jim
Weatherly. "It has a theme like "Not On Your Love"
- it says, 'I'll be there for you no matter what.'" Of
course, it is one of those power ballads. I think there's nothing
better than a good, strong ballad to sell a message."
Jeff, who continues to get a lot of encouragement from his wife,
Kim, who is also his road manager, says: "With every song I
write, and every stage performance, I try to do better than I did
before."
That being the case, we can look forward to hearing a lot more
great song from Jeff Carson.
