Randy Owen
Randy Owen
Randy Yeuell Owenis an American country music artist. He is known primarily for his role as the lead singer of Alabama, a country rock band which saw tremendous mainstream success throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Alabama became, undoubtedly, the most successful group in the history of country music, releasing over 20 gold and platinum records, dozens of #1-ranked singles, and selling over 75 million records during their career. Although Alabama currently only records new albums on occasion, Owen himself has...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCountry Singer
Date of Birth13 December 1949
CityFort Payne, AL
CountryUnited States of America
My father passed away two weeks after we signed with RCA at the start of our career. He taught me to play guitar and to love poetry. And Hank Williams was my daddy's favorite.
It's our fellow Alabamians as well as people throughout the Gulf Coast. You want to be there for them as they've always been for us.
It'll be a really, really huge challenge for me because I've never done anything like that with a symphony before.
The Bowery gave us a great place, a great avenue to be a band and to be able to write and be able to create. The thing with Myrtle Beach and Alabama, it's a unique thing because this is us.
The Bowery was a place that would let us do original songs - not just covers - but we would have to work for tips, so we learned how to work an audience. In order to keep our jobs, we had to keep people happy, so that meant playing the latest Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top or Merle Haggard.
As long as God lets me live, I want to do things that make a difference in the world besides play music.
I feel very good and positive about my future. I look forward to seeing the fans and doing what I do.
I can't not be who I am.
The juices never stop flowing. I still write songs.
The writing part of my life never changes, because that's just when the inspiration comes.
For me, when I grew up playing music, I played music in church and people were shouting and having a big time, and church wasn't something where it was subdued. If you played something, you brought it to church with you.
God has to let you be there, and then you just have to have good fortune for whatever reason. I'm enjoying every moment of my life. We are so fortunate just to be alive.
Our original name was Wild Country, but when we first went to The Bowery, they had the name of all 50 states around the edge of the club, so we went to the sign that said 'Alabama' and stuck our band name underneath it.
I love writing songs. I love doing my radio show and talking to the fans and listening to what they have to say, but there's a certain responsibility that comes along with being given the gift of music. I take that seriously, but at the same time I try to use it to do something that makes a difference in a positive way.