Luke Bryan

Leesburg, Georgia native Luke Bryan honed his skills in local clubs before moving to Nashville in 2001 to pursue a career in music. He recalled the different jobs he worked in and around Leesburg before heading to the Music City. "At age 12 thru 13, I worked at Rubos IGA Supermarket in Leesburg. I worked during the summers on Monday and Tuesday. I stocked and cleaned up the produce. They paid me under the table… I peeled off all of the brown lettuce. When I was 15, I was a cashier at K-Mart for two months. I worked at K-Mart for two months, and then I reverted back to Rubos because it didn't really make sense for me to drive all the way into Albany and work for K-Mart. The benefits were great though-you'd get an hour-long on the blue light special. So I started back at Rubos, and then I quit Rubos and worked for my Dad-just awful just driving tractors through cotton all day, and spraying pesticides that eventually would turn your hair green. And then at some point, I started playing guitar. And well, after college I went back and worked for my dad and continued to spray and haul fertilizer around. And then I moved to Nashville."

Bryan's first success came as a songwriter, and among his first cuts was the title track of Travis Tritt's 2004 album My Honky Tonk History. In 2007 Billy Currington took Bryan's "Good Directions" to #1 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.

Bryan's first hit as a solo artist was his debut single, "All My Friends Say," in 2007. He was 30 years old, which gave him valuable perspective and helped him stay grounded. "I think at 20 I would have processed it all a lot differently, with a lot less maturity," he told People in 2023.