Trace Adkins, the highly praised singer and actor, and CMT Male Video of the Year award winner, has a separate family lineage that does not intersect directly with Chet Atkins.
Chet Atkins, aka Chester Burton Atkins, was an American musician who created the Nashville sound, the country music style that expanded its appeal to adult pop music fans.
Highlights
- Trace Adkins and Chet Atkins are not directly related to each other.
- Both Trace and Chet have contributed a lot to country music.
- Trace’s father bought him a guitar at 10 and hired a teacher to teach him music.
The late singer and songwriter Merle Travis inspired Atkins’ signature picking style. Other major guitar influences were Django Reinhardt, George Barnes, Les Paul, and Jerry Reed.
Sadly, he passed away on June 30, 2011, at his home in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 77.
On the other hand, Trace Adkins is also an American country music singer who debuted in 1996 with the album Dreamin’ Out Loud, released on Capitol Records Nashville.
He has charted over 20 singles on the Billboard country music charts, including the Number One hits “Ladies Love Country” and “You’re Gonna Miss This.”
Adkins has hosted a new three-season series on INSP, Ultimate Cowboy Sundown. He played Big John in the 2003 series King of the Hill.
Trace Adkins And Chet Atkins Come From Different Family Trees
Trace Adkins and Chet Atkins are renowned names and have contributed much to country music. However, they are not directly related.
They come from diverse family backgrounds, and their love for music is the only common thing between them.
June 20, 1924: Chet Atkins, a guitar virtuoso who helped create country music’s smooth “Nashville sound” and establish the city as a hitmaking hub, is born in Luttrell, Tenn. “The Country Gentleman” was also a producer who launched the careers of Waylon Jennings and Dolly Parton. pic.twitter.com/IjLqOZ98cA
— 100YearsAgoNews (@100YearsAgoNews) June 20, 2024
Trace Adkins grew up in an English, Scottish, and distant Welsh family, whereas Chet Atkins grew up in an American family.
People often associate Trace Adkins with Chet Atkins because of their similar surnames, derived from an English occupational name meaning “son of Adam.”
Trace Adkins’ Family Supported Him To Pursue His Career In Music
Trace Adkins, 62, was born on January 13, 1962, in Sarepta, Louisiana, to his father, Aaron Doyle Adkins, and his mother, Peggy Carraway.
When he was 10, his father bought him a guitar and hired someone to teach him music. At Sarepta High School, he joined the New Commitments gospel music group.
Adkins’ maternal uncle, James W. Carraway, was a Christian musician.
After leaving college, he started playing music in a band called Bayou. For a few years, he also played at honky-tonk bars in the Ark-La-Tex area.
While playing at Tillie and Lucy’s bar in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, Capitol Nashville’s musician Scott Hendricks spotted Adkins and signed him from where his official music career began.
Additional Information
- Trace Adkins has an estimated net worth of over $19 million as of 2024.
- Adkins married Julie Lauren Curtis in 1991 and separated in 1994. He then married Rhonda Forlaw in 1997 but separated in 2015. He married Victoria Pratt in 2019.
- Chet Atkins was married to Leona Johnson, who outlived him by eight years, passing in 2009 at 85.
