Aaron Tippin

Aaron Tippin
Aaron Tippin (left) entertains the troops for Thanksgiving 2005 at FOB Speicher, Tikrit, Iraq
Background information
Born	July 3 1958 (1958-07-03) (age 49)
Origin	Pensacola, Florida, United States
Genre(s)	country
Occupation(s)	singer-songwriter, record producer
Instrument(s)	vocals, rhythm guitar
Years active	1990–present
Label(s)	RCA, Lyric Street, Nippit/Rust
Website	AaronTippin.com

Aaron Tippin (born July 3, 1958 in Pensacola, Florida^[1]) is an American country music singer-songwriter and record producer. Initially a songwriter for Acuff-Rose Music, he gained a recording contract with RCA Records in 1990. His debut single, "You've Got to Stand for Something" became a popular anthem for American soldiers fighting in the Gulf War^[2]; in addition, helped to establish him as a neotraditionalist country act with songs that catered primarily to the American working class. Under RCA's tenure, he recorded five studio albums and a Greatest Hits package. By the later half of the 1990s, however, his sales and chart performance began to wane, and he was dropped from the label's roster.^[1] Tippin switched to Lyric Street Records in 1998, where he recorded four more studio albums, counting a compilation of Christmas music. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he released the patriotic anthem "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly"; although it was his most successful crossover single, Aaron saw his popularity decline a second time after its release.^[1][2] After parting ways with Lyric Street in 2006, he founded a personal label known as Nippit Records, on which he issued the compilation album Now & Then. To date, Tippin has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations. In addition, he has charted more than thirty singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three Number Ones: "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio" (1992), "That's As Close As I'll Get to Loving You" (1995), and "Kiss This" (2000).

Biography

Born in Pensacola, Florida, but raised in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, Tippin performed in local honky-tonks in the 1970s. He competed on TNN's "You Can Be A Star" talent contest in 1986, landed a song publishing contract and moved to Nashville in 1987 . During this time he wrote songs for The Kingsmen, David Ball, The Midsouth Boys, Mark Collie, and Charley Pride. He would spend his nights working at Logan Aluminum in Logan County, Kentucky and spend his days driving 60 miles to Nashville to write songs. Tippin performed his first Nashville nightclub show in 1990, and it earned him a contract with RCA records. His first single, "You've Got to Stand for Something", cracked the top 10 in 1991 and allowed him to go to the Persian Gulf with Bob Hope, to entertain the troops. Then, in 1992, Aaron's single "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong With the Radio" stayed at No. 1 for three weeks. In 1995, Tippin married the former Thea Corontzos, and he, Thea, and his manager, Billy Craven, created Tippin's company, Tip Top Entertainment. Tippin also opened two hunting supply stores called Aaron Tippin Firearms. One is located close to where he lives in Smithville, Tennessee, and the other was run by his late father Willis in Oak City, North Carolina. Willis Emory "Tip" Tippin died in 2005 in a traffic accident. Thea has co-written several of Aaron's songs (including the Number One "Kiss This"); in addition, Aaron and Thea recorded a duet called "Love Like There's No Tomorrow" in 2003. In 1998, Tippin moved to Hollywood Records, where he recorded one album and landed a Top 10 hit with "For You I Will". By 2000, he had switched to Lyric Street Records and charted a No. 1 hit with "Kiss This", co-written with his wife Thea in 2000 . In the wake of 9/11, his patriotic anthem, "Where the Stars and Stripes and Eagle Fly", peaked at No. 2. Both songs crossed over onto the Hot 100 charts. In 2006, Tippin formed his own record label -- Nippit Records, a joint partnership with Rust Nashville.

Musical stylings

Please help improve this article by expanding this section. See for details. Please remove this message once the section has been expanded.

Tippin's singing voice is a baritone, often characterized with a nasal Southern twang.^[3]

Discography

Main albums

• You've Got to Stand for Something (1991)
• Read Between the Lines (1991)
• Call of the Wild (1993)
• Lookin' Back at Myself (1994)
• Tool Box (1995)
• What This Country Needs (1998)
• People Like Us (2000)
• A December to Remember (2001)
• Stars & Stripes (2002)
• I Believed (2004) (unreleased)

Compilations

• Greatest Hits... and Then Some (1997)
• The Essential Aaron Tippin (1998)
• Super Hits (1998)
• RCA Country Legends: Aaron Tippin (2002)
• All American Country (2003)
• Ultimate Aaron Tippin (2004)
• Platinum Collection (2004)
• Now & Then (2006)

Singles

• ^AAn alternate version of "Come Friday", titled "It's Friday" (intended to be played only on Fridays), was also released to radio; both versions were counted as one song when the charts were tabulated.
• ^BFailed to chart.

Footnotes

References

• Oermann, Robert K. (1998). "Aaron Tippin". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 540-1.

External links

• Aaron Tippin Homepage
• Aaron Tippin Page on Rust Nashville