Tracy Lawrence is bringing his distinctive sound of music to Alabama in 2025. He performs at Mobile’s Saenger Theater on March 13.
Tickets go on sale on Dec. 20 at 10 a.m.
Lawrence writes, sings, and produces a blend of neoclassical country music and light Southern rock, with a little honky-tonk and Christian country music thrown in.
He has charted 42 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including eight that hit number one:
Sticks and stones
Alibis
Can’t Break It to My Heart
My Second Home
If the Good Die Young
Texas Tornado
Time Marches On
Find Out Who Your Friends Are
Lawrence also has released 14 studio albums.
Lawrence has experienced the rough and tumble danger of country music life on the road. On May 31, 1991, he walked his girlfriend to the door of her hotel room and was confronted by three armed men. The men robbed them and attempted to force Lawrence and his girlfriend into her motel room. Lawrence resisted and was shot four times, enabling his girlfriend to escape. Two of the wounds were major and necessitated surgery. One of the bullets remains embedded to this day in Lawrence's pelvis.
Tracy Lawrence became a real-life example of the old saying, “There’s a silver lining in every cloud.” While the shooting was traumatic, painful and injurious, there was an unexpected benefit.
Lawrence's album (his only one at that time) shot up the charts to number one on the back of publicity from the shooting and spawned several Top 10 singles.
It’s a marketing technique Lawrence hopes to never repeat.
Tracy Lawrence was born in Atlanta, Texas, and raised in Foreman, Ark., where he started singing in the family’s Methodist church choir. He played in his first nightclubs at age 15 and joined a local honky-tonk band at age 17. In 1990, he left Arkansas and went to Nashville. The rest is country music history.
Lawrence took jobs as an ironworker and in phone sales while he tried to break into the Nashville music scene. He began participating in talent shows and earned enough money to live on. In 1991, he had a gig at the Bluebird Cafe and met Wayne Edwards. who became his manager.
With Edwards’ assistance, Lawrence signed with Atlantic Records only seven months after moving to Nashville. They released his first album "Sticks and Stones."
Lawrence's second album, “Alibis,” went Platinum and generated three straight Number One singles.
Lawrence was Billboard's Top New Male Vocalist in 1992 and received the Academy of Country Music's Best New Artist and Top New Male Vocalist in 1993.
In 1994, Lawrence released his third album, “I See It Now,” which was also a Platinum album. Lawrence released a Live album in 1995 and another studio album entitled “Time Marches On” in 1996. In 1997, Lawrence released another album entitled “Coast is Clear,” which he co-produced. At this point in his career, every one of his albums had gone Platinum.
In 2005, he released the album "Then & Now: The Hits Collection."
He wrote and sang one Alabama-themed song, “Paint Me a Birmingham,” which reached number four in 2004.
Lawrence included two featured vocalists on his 2007 single, “Find Out Who Your Friends Are.” They were Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney. It took “Friends” 41 weeks to move up the chart to reach number one – in itself a record.
In 2007, Lawerence released a Christmas album, “All Wrapped Up in Christmas.”
Lawrence has been inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame.
The Saenger Theater is at 6 S. Joachim Street in downtown Mobile. It is part of LoDa, the downtown entertainment district.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler writes about Alabama’s people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at ZeiglerElderCare@yahoo.com.
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