Garth Brooks

Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter.[1] His integration of rock and roll elements into the country genre has earned him immense popularity in the United States. Brooks has had great success on the country single and album charts,[2] with multi-platinum recordings and record-breaking live performances, while also crossing over into the mainstream pop arena.[3] According to the RIAA, he is the best-selling solo albums artist in the United States with 148 million domestic units sold, ahead of Elvis Presley, and is second only to The Beatles in total album sales overall.[4] He is also one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 160 million records.[5] As of September 23, 2016, Brooks is the only artist in history to have released seven albums that achieved diamond status in the U.S., those being: Garth Brooks (10× platinum), No Fences (17× platinum), Ropin' the Wind (14× platinum), The Hits (10× platinum), Sevens (10× platinum), Double Live (21× platinum), and The Ultimate Hits (10× platinum).[6] Since 1989, Brooks has released 21 records in all, which include: 12 studio albums, 1 live album, 3 compilation albums, 3 Christmas albums and 4 box sets, along with 77 singles. He won several awards in his career, including 2 Grammy Awards, 17 American Music Awards (including the "Artist of the '90s") and the RIAA Award for best-selling solo albums artist of the century in the U.S. Troubled by conflicts between career and family, Brooks retired from recording and performing from 2001 until 2009.[3] During this time, he sold millions of albums through an exclusive distribution deal with Walmart and sporadically released new singles.[7][8] In 2005, Brooks started a partial comeback, giving select performances and releasing two compilation albums. In 2009, he began Garth at Wynn, a periodic weekend residency show at Las Vegas' Encore Theatre from December 2009 to January 2014. Following the conclusion of the residency, Brooks announced his signing with Sony Music Nashville in July 2014.[9] In September 2014, he began his comeback tour, The Garth Brooks World Tour, with wife and musician Trisha Yearwood. His most recent album, Gunslinger, was released in November 2016. Brooks was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on October 21, 2012.[10] He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011