Singer Survives Life’s Struggles

Trace Adkins doesn’t get worked up about too many things.

That comes from surviving a bullet to the heart and a variety of serious accidents - including ones that severed his nose and a finger.

“I think it has given me almost a sense of indestructibility,” Adkins said. “I’ve come as close to death as anybody will ever come without actually dying. It’s not made me fearless, but almost kind of jaded to the dangers of this life.”

So, it’s understandable why he’s not overly concerned about a few recent twists in his personal and business lives.

On the home front, his third wife, Rhonda, gave birth Tuesday to his third child, Mackenzie Lynn.

At work, his record producer and close friend Scott Hendricks has left Capitol Nashville. Rumor has it that Adkins also will leave Capitol Nashville and may join Hendricks at Virgin Nashville, a new label financed by Capitol’s parent company, EMI.

“I’m just sitting back waiting to see how that all shakes out before I’ll decide what I’m going to do,” Adkins said.

Regardless of the changes, Adkins’ place in country music appears secure for now. His second album, “Big Time,” came out in October and is a hit, selling more than 215,000 copies and producing a top 20 single, the wedding ballad “The Rest of Mine.”

The 36-year-old Adkins, a 6-foot-6-inch former oil field worker, looks the part of a country star. He has long hair and wears the requisite boots and black hat.

Born in Springhill, La., he grew up seven miles south in Sarepta.

“I was a wild boy,” he said with a laugh, “and stayed that way for too long.”

At 17, he punctured his lungs, broke some ribs and severed his nose when he drove his pickup into an empty, parked school bus. His nose was later reattached.

He attended Louisiana Tech University but dropped out when knee injuries ended his football prospects.

Adkins went to work in the oil fields and nearly lost both his legs in a bulldozer accident in 1982. Six years later, his left leg was crushed when an oil tank exploded as he was repairing it.

That’s not all. Adkins flipped a truck he was driving in 1988, injuring his neck. The next year, he cut off his finger at work. When it was reattached and set, Adkins told doctors to permanently slant it so he could play guitar.

In 1994, during an argument with his second wife, she grabbed a gun they kept in the house. Adkins tried to scare her into putting it down but ended up almost dying from a bullet to the heart. No charges were filed.

The shooting occurred two years after Adkins moved to Nashville. He had spent years playing clubs and getting nowhere in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and New Mexico. He even returned to the oil fields for a time before deciding to give music another shot.

“A guy who had been my booking agent called me on the phone one day and said, ‘You know, it wasn’t that you didn’t have the talent, you just weren’t in the right place. The factory where they make country music stars is in Nashville and that’s where you need to be,”’ Adkins said.

Hendricks signed him to Capitol after he’d been rejected by a half-dozen record labels. Adkins’ first album, “Dreamin’ Out Loud,” produced two No. 1 singles, “Every Light in the House” and “(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing.”

His weary attitude has allowed Adkins to promote himself in forums where country artists rarely tread. During an appearance on G. Gordon Liddy’s syndicated radio show, he talked guns with Liddy, who enthusiastically discussed the double entendre of Adkins’ single “I Left Something Turned on at Home.”

Adkins also went on the TV show “Politically Incorrect” and defended the Confederate flag.

“Before I was even in a position where people cared what I thought, I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind and orate my point of view,” Adkins said.

“I’ve never been politically correct.”