Doug Stone

All Music Guide:

Contemporary country star Doug Stone made his name as a lonesome baritone balladeer, though he's also adept at hard uptempo country. Stone was born and raised in Newnan, GA, and learned guitar from his mother -- also a country singer -- starting at age five. As a teenager, he performed in skating rinks in his hometown and later moved on to playing area bars while working long hours as a mechanic during the day. Stone was already several years past 30 when a Nashville-based manager saw his act and helped him finally land a record deal with Epic. His self-titled debut was released in 1990 and broke him in a big way with the despairing lead single "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)," which shot into the country Top Five. Stone landed three more Top Ten hits from the album, including "Fourteen Minutes Old," "These Lips Don't Know How to Say Goodbye," and his first number one, "In a Different Light." He quickly completed a follow-up album, I Thought It Was You, for release in 1991, which confirmed his downtrodden persona and became his second straight million-seller on the strength of three Top Five hits: the title track, "Come in Out of the Pain," and a second number one in "A Jukebox with a Country Song." Shortly before the release of his third album, From the Heart, in 1992, Stone underwent quadruple bypass surgery; he recovered in time to issue the holiday album The First Christmas by year's end.

Meanwhile, From the Heart kept spinning off one hit after another: "Warning Labels" and "Made for Lovin' You" went Top Ten, and both "Too Busy Being in Love" and "Why Didn't I Think of That" topped the charts. Stone continued his frantic hitmaking pace with 1993's More Love, which contained three Top Ten smashes in "Addicted to a Dollar," "I Never Knew Love," and the title track. Like From the Heart, More Love went gold, and Stone followed it in 1995 with the compilation Greatest Hits, Vol. 1, whose newly recorded "Little Houses" went Top Ten. Later in the year, Stone returned with Faith in Me, Faith in You; while it featured hits in the title track and "Born in the Dark," nothing reached the Top Ten. To make matters worse, his health problems continued: in December 1995, he suffered a near-fatal heart attack, and the recuperation time put the recording of his next album on hold. In 1997, Stone was nearly killed in a plane crash, and all the near-death experiences led him to slow down his touring and recording pace. He eventually parted ways with Columbia and went to Atlantic for 1999's Make Up in Love, his most pop-oriented offering to date. Thanks to declining sales, it was his only album for the label, and he subsequently moved to the independent Audium label for 2002's The Long Way. Live at Billy Bob's Texas was released by Smith Music Group in 2009.

Wikipedia:

Douglas Jackson "Doug" Brooks (born June 19, 1956 in Newnan, Georgia) is an American country music artist known professionally as Doug Stone. He debuted in 1990 with the single "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)," the first release from his 1990 self-titled debut album for Epic Records. Both this album and is successor, 1991's I Thought It Was You, earned a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. Two more albums for Epic, 1992's From the Heart and 1994's More Love, are each certified gold. Following the latter, Stone made his acting debut in the film Gordy.

Stone moved to Columbia Records to record Faith in Me, Faith in You, which did not produce a Top Ten among its three singles. After suffering a heart attack and stroke in the late 1990s, he exited the label and did not release another album until Make Up in Love in 1999 on Atlantic Records. After it came The Long Way on the Audium label (now part of E1 Music) and two albums on the independent Lofton Creek Records.

Stone has charted twenty-two singles on Hot Country Songs, with his greatest chart success coming between 1990 and 1995. In this timespan, he charted four Number Ones: "In a Different Light," "A Jukebox with a Country Song," "Too Busy Being in Love" and "Why Didn't I Think of That," and eleven more Top Ten singles.

Biography

Stone was born as Douglas Jackson Brooks on June 19, 1956 in Marietta, Georgia. His mother, who was also a country music singer, taught him how to play guitar when he was five. When he was seven years old, his mother placed him onstage to open for Loretta Lynn. His mother and father later divorced, and after the divorce, he moved to live with his father. He found additional work singing as a teenager - first at local skating rinks, and then at local bars, and later as one member of a short-lived trio; in addition, he and his father worked as mechanics to make ends meet. The singer's break came one night in 1987 as his band, Mainstreet, played a regular show at the Newnan VFW Club. Eventually, he also adopted the stage name Doug Stone, to avoid confusion with both Garth Brooks and Kix Brooks (formerly of Brooks & Dunn). Stone signed to Epic Records's Nashville division in 1990.

Musical career

1990–1991: Doug Stone

Stone's self-titled debut album was released in 1990. Its first single, "I'd Be Better Off (In a Pine Box)," spent twenty-five weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and peaked at #4. In addition, the single was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Song, and the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for U.S. shipments of one million copies. The album's next two singles were both Top Ten singles as well: "Fourteen Minutes Old" at #6 and "These Lips Don't Know How to Say Goodbye" at #5. Following these songs was his first Number One, "In a Different Light."

Brian Mansfield gave Doug Stone a four-and-a-half star rating out of five in his review for Allmusic. His review praised "I'd Be Better Off" in particular, calling the song a "towering expression of self-pity that most singers could spend a career trying to top," also saying that Stone "came close" to matching that song's quality in the album's ballads.

1991-1992

I Thought It Was You, his second album, was released in August 1991. Also certified platinum, it produced three more chart singles: the #4 title track, followed by the Number One "A Jukebox with a Country Song" and "Come In Out of the Pain" at #3. "A Jukebox with a Country Song" spent two weeks at the top of his charts, as opposed to the one-week runs of his other Number Ones.

In early 1992, Stone had found that one of the arteries in his heart was almost entirely blocked, after having suffered dizziness and pain in one of his arms. He underwent quadruple bypass surgery and took time off to recover, just as his third album, From the Heart, was released. With a gold certification for shipments of 500,000 copies, From the Heart included two Number Ones among its four singles: "Too Busy Being in Love" and "Why Didn't I Think of That." The other two singles were "Warning Labels" and "Made for Lovin' You," at #4 and #6 respectively. One month after From the Heart, Stone released a Christmas album titled The First Christmas.

1993-1995

His fourth album, More Love, was released in November 1993, immediately after the chart debut of its lead-off single "I Never Knew Love." This song spent two weeks at #2 on the country singles charts. It also accounted for his only entry on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at #81. The album's next two singles were the #4 "Addicted to a Dollar" and the title track at #6.

Starting in June 1994, Stone discovered that he was having breathing problems which were affecting his singing. He consulted throat doctors at Vanderbilt University's medical center, who failed to find any problems in his throat. A second consultation revealed that Stone had a lump in his left nostril which was his breathing problems. Upon discovery of the lump, Stone feared that he might see his career ending with a bout of cancer; later testing proved that it was not cancerous. Stone also told Country Weekly magazine that he quit smoking immediately after the surgery.

While Stone was undergoing treatment, his Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 compilation was released in late 1994. This album included the new song "Little Houses," which debuted on the charts in October 1994 and peaked and peaked at #7 in early 1995. After the release of his Greatest Hits package, Stone made his acting debut in the 1995 film Gordy, in which he starred as Luke McAllister, a struggling musician. Several of the songs from More Love were also featured in this film, most notably "More Love."

Following a switch from Epic to the Columbia Records label, Stone released Faith in Me, Faith in You in 1995. This album's three singles were comparatively less successful than his previous singles, with none reaching Top 10: the title track peaked at #13, followed by "Sometimes I Forget" at #41 (his first single to miss the Top 40) and "Born in the Dark" at #12. Stone suffered a nearly-fatal heart attack in December 1995, and as a result, further recordings for Columbia Records were delayed. His last charting single for Columbia was "Gone Out of My Mind," which he recorded for a multi-artist compilation titled A Tribute to Tradition. Also in the mid-1990s, Stone suffered a mild stroke, further reducing his ability to record and tour.

1997-1999

In 1999, he survived a plane crash at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. After recovering from the plane crash, Stone recorded and released his first album for Atlantic Records, to which he had signed that year. Titled Make Up in Love, the album featured a more pop-oriented style than previous efforts, and produced a minor Top 20 hit in its title track. Its next singles were a cover of R.B. Greaves's 1969 single "Take a Letter Maria" and "Surprise." Respectively, these songs peaked at #45 and #64, with the latter spending only one week on the country charts.

2000s

In 2000, Stone suffered a broken left ankle and a cracked rib after crashing his ultralight plane in Robertson County, Tennessee, and was briefly hospitalized before he resumed touring. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, rumors circulated that Stone had been on one of the hijacked planes; a spokeswoman for the singer confirmed that he was at home with his family that day.

Stone signed to Audium Entertainment in 2002 and recorded The Long Way. The album failed to produce any chart singles. His next album did not come out until 2005, when he signed to the independent label Lofton Creek Records, recording the album In a Different Light. The album's title track was a re-recording of the early-1990s single of the same name.

In 2005, the singer was sentenced to six months in jail for civil and criminal contempt for failing to release his financial records and failing to pay alimony and child support. Afterward, a second album for Lofton Creek Records, titled My Turn, was released in September 2007.

Stone was arrested on April 9, 2009 in Panama City, FL, for domestic violence against his 22-year-old son, Dustin Brooks. They reportedly engaged in a heated dispute over his son's disabled car and Stone's drinking. Dustin was battered and wished to press charges against his father, according to Maj. Dave Humphreys of the Panama City Beach police.

He most recently performed for Captain Stanford of the Bay COunty Sherrifs office on the 10th of September 2011.

2011

In October 2011 Doug Stone acted in the movie "When The Storm God Rides" a Thomas E. Kelly film produced by Storm God Studios of Georgia.