Rodney Atkins was born in Tennessee, and put up for adoption not long after his birth. As an infant at the Holston Methodist Home for Children in Greeneville, Tennessee, he was so sick that two couples who had taken him home returned him a few days later. A third couple from Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, adopted him as well and, even though his ailments worsened, refused to give him up. His adoptive mother had been raised in a coal mining family near a tannery camp, and his dad survived an upbringing marked by poverty and episodes of abuse. During high school, Atkins played guitar in his spare time at events and festivals. He went to college at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee, where he worked various jobs in order to pay for his education. He also went into Nashville to play gigs and write songs.
Rodney was signed to Curb Records in 1997. That year, he charted for the first time with the single "In a Heartbeat", which peaked at #74 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts. He had also planned to release a self-titled debut album that year; however, after deciding that he was not satisfied with the album's contents at that point, he asked Mike Curb (the label's president) to allow him more time to work on the album. For two more years, Atkins continued to work on his debut album, although it was eventually shelved.
Honesty
In 2002, Atkins released his second single, entitled "Sing Along". Both it and its followup, "My Old Man", peaked in the lower regions of the Top 40 on the country charts. Eventually, he cracked Top 10 for the first time in late 2003-early 2004 with "Honesty (Write Me a List)", which went on to peak at #4. The song was the title track to his album Honesty, which was released by the end of 2003. "Someone to Share It With" and "Monkey in the Middle" were also issued as singles from this album, although the former peaked at #41, and the latter failed to chart.
If You're Going Through Hell
Having been absent from the country music charts for most of 2004 and 2005, Rodney returned in 2006 with a single entitled "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)", which served as the lead-off to his second released album, If You're Going Through Hell. The song went on to become not only his first Number One hit on the country charts, but also the Number One country song of the year 2006 according to Billboard. This single's followup, "Watching You", earned Rodney a second consecutive Number One; in 2007, it was also declared by Billboard as Number One country song of the year.
Currently a platinum-certified album in the United States, If You're Going Through Hell has produced two more hit singles, for a total of four consecutive Number Ones: "These Are My People" and "Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy)".
