Deryl Dodd   -  Biography

Deryl Dodd was born April 12, 1964, in Dallas, where he favored football over music throughout his formative years. When an injury permanently derailed his athletic career, his fellow students at Baylor University encouraged him to begin performing his music in public, and soon, he was one of the biggest attractions on the Waco club circuit.

He relocated to Nashville in 1991 and worked his way up through the Music City ranks. He began his ascent when he was hired as lead guitarist and harmony singer for Martina McBride, who put him on stadium stages during her tour with Garth Brooks. (Later, Dodd would open for Brooks himself.) After working with John Hiatt, Kevin Welch and Radney Foster while continuing to write songs, he inked a publishing deal with BMG Music, leading to numerous cuts, including two by Tim McGraw.

In 1994, he joined Tracy Lawrence's band on rhythm guitar and harmony vocals, moonlighting on recording sessions with McBride, Lawrence and Foster, among others. A year later, he landed a recording contract with Columbia Records. His 1996 debut album, One Ride in Vegas, spawned the hit single, "That's How I Got to Memphis" (written by Tom T. Hall) and brought critical acclaim, national tours and a growing number of newfound fans. His self-titled 1998 follow-up put him on the fast track. As a single from the album climbed the charts, he was invited to open for Tim McGraw and Brooks & Dunn on tours that together would have taken him through the summer of 1999.

But earlier in the year, he'd started feeling worn down and out of sorts, a situation he initially attributed to "burning the candle at both ends." He began to feel progressively worse, finding himself unable to play guitar during one gig, then getting out of bed a couple of weeks later to discover he couldn't raise his arms to brush his teeth or comb his hair. Driving to an in-studio performance at a Nashville radio station, he started seeing double and made a detour to the nearest hospital, where he was diagnosed with an ear infection. But he kept working, having learned as a star high school running back to play with pain. As he tried, with decreasing effectiveness, to maintain his rigorous schedule, his condition continued to deteriorate, and doctors feared an aneurism or a brain tumor. After blood tests turned up nothing, he was given a spinal tap, which finally revealed his problem: an acute case of viral encephalitis, a debilitating illness that attacks the central nervous system. His doctors believed he'd recover, provided he went through with the prescribed treatment, which required 24-hour bed rest. So there would be no touring for this emerging star, no way for him to do the things necessary to take the single all the way home. Dodd found it deeply ironic that the song was titled "A Bitter End."

What followed was six months of frustrating immobility, as he was confined to his bed, unable even to take solace in his primary form of self-therapy, playing the guitar. One day during his months of inaction, he happened upon a TV documentary about fellow Texan Lance Armstrong, who'd fought back from a life-threatening bout with cancer to win the Tour de France. Armstrong's miraculous journey from the abyss to athletic triumph strengthened Dodd's resolve.

After what seemed to him to be a small eternity, he finally started feeling better. But at first, he says, for every step forward, he took two steps back. His first attempt to pick up the guitar -- only to find he couldn't make his left hand form the chords on the fretboard because his hand shook uncontrollably -- disturbed him so much that he didn't touch the instrument for another several months. In all, he spent another year and a-half in rehabilitation, slowly regaining his motor skills.

When he could play and sing well enough to perform, he started showing up for songwriter nights at Nashville clubs. Then he reunited with guitarist Steve Rhian, drummer Eric Nelson and bass player Steve Carmack from his old band, the Homesick Cowboys -- three guys who'd believed in him to such a degree that they waited for him to recover, and they started playing together again. McGraw offered him the opening slot on the Soul 2 Soul tour with Faith Hill.

When Sony invited him to record his long-delayed third album, he requested a move from the flagship Columbia label to Sony's newly-formed Lucky Dog imprint dedicated to Texas music and the Texas market. Sony argued that the move was akin to a demotion, but he insisted. So it was that 2002's Pearl Snaps appeared on Lucky Dog. Its first two singles, "Pearl Snaps" and "Honky Tonk Champagne," both hit No. 1 on the Texas music chart. He followed this musical renewal with a personal one, leaving Nashville behind and returning home to Texas to play the club scene there.

Shortly after that, he and Sony parted ways. Dodd released a live album in the Live at Billy Bob's series in 2003, followed by Stronger Proof on Dualtone in 2004.