Hard-edged honky-tonker Trace Adkins built his career by sticking to his traditionalist guns. Born in the tiny town of Sarepta, Louisiana in 1962, Adkins has led a life tailor-made for a country star. After graduating high school, where he sang in a gospel group called the New Commitments, he headed to Louisiana Tech to play football. A knee injury cut short his time there, and Adkins dropped out and worked on an oil rig, where he accidentally cut off the tip of his left pinky finger—he had the docs reattach it at an angle so he could keep playing guitar. After cutting his teeth in bars around the South, Adkins made music his life with the 1996 debut, Dreamin’ Out Loud, which put three singles in the top three spots on the country chart. His small-town upbringing and working-class roots inform many of his tunes; he espouses the romantic advantages of a farmer’s tan on the 2006 chart-topper “Ladies Love Country Boys” and throws a hillbilly party on 2020’s rowdy “Just the Way We Do It.” While he can do vulnerability, too—2011’s “Just Fishin’” is a tearjerker of a daughter and daddy tune—a punchy, good-time blend of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, and twang is Adkins’ calling card. Runaway 2005 hit “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”—an early harbinger of country’s embrace of hip-hop—is a stellar example, the perfect storm of party-starter riffs and cheeky humor.