Deryl Dodd

During his early years in Dallas, Texas, honky tonker Deryl Dodd placed football far ahead of music. An injury that ended his athletic prospects for good prompted fellow students at Baylor University to urge him toward public performances, after which he quickly ranked among the top draws on the Waco club circuit. Upon earning his degree in 1987 he turned to music full time, relocating to Nashville in 1991 to start a band alongside his friend Brett Beavers. Following his role supporting Martina McBride on her 1992 tour that opened for Garth Brooks, Dodd contributed backing vocals to her second LP before launching a solo path. He also spent time as a member of Tracy Lawrence’s band and supplied harmony vocals on releases by Radney Foster and George Ducas. When a 1994 demo arrangement collapsed, he delivered his first album, One Ride in Vegas, in 1996; a self-titled follow-up arrived two years later. Soon after the 1998 release, Dodd had scheduled a national tour opening for Tim McGraw and Brooks & Dunn, yet those dates vanished after doctors diagnosed an acute case of viral encephalitis. Confined to bed for six months on medical orders, he then endured an eighteen-month rehabilitation that required him to relearn guitar. After resuming songwriter nights in Nashville he left his Columbia Records contract for Lucky Dog, the Sony imprint focused on Texas music. Pearl Snaps surfaced on Lucky Dog in 2002. Returning to Texas, he received an invitation to record Live at Billy Bob’s Texas, which appeared in August 2003. Back in his home state his fortunes improved steadily, among them the sales of his 2004 album Pearl Snaps. In 2006 he issued Full Circle on DualTone Nashville.