It took an accident for Brantley Gilbert to wake up and find a guitar for him. Gilbert was born on January 20, 1985, in Jefferson, Georgia. He never found himself a decent musician, songwriter or guitar player. While he grew up ruling the charts and bands like REM rooting nearby with music, his hearttache, personal tale, and feeling still leaned towards the country.
When he was injured in a fatal auto crash, which hurled him out of the rear seat, he was nineteen. His vehicle overturned and clipped a tree many times, nearly costing him his life. “I thought about how I might not be here tomorrow. And if I was going to do something with today, what would I do?” he said. So, he wrote “Prodigal Son” and “Indiana’s Angel” after some soul-searching.
Gilbert continued with the night-after-night stage and opening for other musicians from around the southeast of the world. By 2006, he was able to release his first song, “Modern Day Prodigal Son” but he did not release the album until he signed with Average Joe’s Entertainment in mid-2009. His success grew and he continued to compose songs for musicians such as Colt Ford and Jason Aldean.
In March 2010, a few months before he formed Valory Music Company, a subsidiary of Big Machine Records, he released his second studio album, Halfway to Heaven, with Average Joe. The sophomore effort, including remixes of all the songs as well as some new tracks that were not on the initial version of the record, was issued in a deluxe edition in September 2011.
“The first track from the deluxe version was “World Must Be Country Wide”. It went to number one in the U.S. Billboard List for Country Music. The second single, “You Don’t Know Her Like I Do” released in the United States at number 52. In December 2011, the Billboard Hot Country Songs list climbed to third place. At the 2012 American Country Ceremony, the song finally earned Single of the Year: Breakout Artist.