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Whitney Duncan grew up in a small town in Tennessee. She briefly appeared on the country charts in July 2004 (for one week at No. 60) with “My World is Over,” a duet with Kenny Rogers. The label opted not to release an album, but she resurfaced in 2008 with new music produced by John Shanks and Mark Bright on Warner Bros. Nashville.

Popularity: 3%

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Steve Azar grew up along the silted riverbanks of Greenville, Miss., near the Arkansas/Louisiana state lines. His love affair with music began early. By the time he was 5, Azar was already entertaining, performing concerts around the house. His mother recalls his favorite toy wasn’t a truck or a tricycle but a tiny guitar.

Popularity: 2%

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Blake Shelton was born on June 18, 1976, in Ada, Okla. He wrote songs as a teenager and honed his performing style as he played honky-tonk bars and became a regular on a local country music show.

At 17, Shelton met songwriter Mae Boren Axton (”Heartbreak Hotel”). She had returned to her Oklahoma roots for a tribute show honoring her in Ada. Shelton was part of the entertainment lineup and Axton told him to move to Nashville if he wanted a successful country music singing career. Two weeks out of high school in 1994, he packed his guitar and headed there.

In 1997, he was co-writing with a friend who tipped off songwriter/producer Bobby Braddock, who co-wrote the standards “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Time Marches On,” among others. Braddock ultimately served as the producer for Shelton’s self-titled debut on Warner Bros. Nashville. His debut single, “Austin,” stayed at No. 1 on Billboard’s singles chart for five weeks, tying Billy Ray Cyrus’ record for a debut single. Shelton also reached No. 1 for three weeks with “The Baby” in 2003. He spent most of the year on the road with Toby Keith and married his high school sweetheart. They divorced in 2006.

Popularity: 3%

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Growing up in a nonmusical family in Phoenix, AZ, country singer Dierks Bentley got his country music education on his own, listening to recordings. A love of the music inspired him to move to Nashville at the age of 19, but he quickly grew discouraged by the lack of public and professional interest coming his way. It all changed when he walked into the Station Inn, a bar where the bluegrass faithful hang out. An all-night jam session recharged his batteries and he restarted pursuing gigs. He landed a job at the TNN television network doing research on classic country music and by night he worked on his demos. Capitol Records heard the artist, signed him, and released his self-titled debut, Dierks Bentley, in 2003, which yielded the impossibly catchy single “What Was I Thinkin’”. Bringing his love of Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings more to the forefront, Modern Day Drifter followed two years later and became a Top Ten hit. In 2006 he returned with Long Trip Alone, a more polished effort that was commercial but not crass. Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory arrived in 2008, a bit early in his career for that, perhaps, but it did contain his key charting singles and added in fan-selected live tracks as a bonus, making it a nice summation of Bentley’s work to date. A new album, Feel That Fire, was released in early 2009. ~ David Jeffries & Steve Leggett, All Music Guide

Popularity: 2%

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Stomp Your Boots Remix

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Porch Party Remix

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Bottle Rocket Remix

Gloriana is a four-member vocal group featuring brothers Tom and Mike Gossin along with Rachel Reinert and Cheyenne Kimball. The Gossin brothers grew up in Utica, N.Y., and moved to Nashville in 2007 after performing extensively in clubs in North Carolina. Both took classical piano lessons by the time they were 5 years old. At age 10, Tom began studying with a local jazz musician at 10 and picked up the guitar at 12. He had his own band in high school and moved to Wilmington, N.C., with two bandmates after graduation. He was a guitar major at the University of North Carolina Wilmington until a teacher encouraged his dream of songwriting and performing. He dropped out and began playing music 200-250 nights a year, making independent records to sell at gigs. Mike, who began playing drums at 8 and guitar at 12, had his own group in high school, too, and later moved to Wilmington to join Tom. He fronted his own band, then joined a group with Tom and their older brother Steve, filming a short-lived reality series. When Steve went his own way, Tom and Mike formed a duo and eventually decided to relocate to Nashville, where they met Reinert through her MySpace page.

Popularity: 3%

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Popularity: 16%