Chad Brock

Chad Brock (born , 1963 in Ocala, Florida) is an American country music artist and disc jockey. Before beginning his musical career in the late 1990s, he was a professional wrestler in World Championship Wrestling (WCW), until an injury forced him to retire.

Brock signed to Warner Bros. Records' Nashville division in the late 1990s, releasing three studio albums ? 1999's Chad Brock, 2000's Yes!, and 2001's III ? for the label. These albums, overall, produced seven singles on the Billboard country music charts, including the Number One hit "Yes!" and the Top Five "Ordinary Life". Brock left Warner Bros. in 2002 and signed to Broken Bow Records a year later; although he released five singles for the label (of which four charted), his album for Broken Bow was not released, and he exited that label as well.

Starting in the late 2000s, Brock has also begun a career as a disc jockey at WQYK-FM in Tampa, Florida, where he and parody singer Cledus T. Judd co-host a morning show.

Biography

Chad Brock was born July 31, 1963 in Ocala, Florida. In high school, Brock played football and was offered a post-secondary scholarship to play sports. He turned down the scholarship, however, as his experiences in the school choir had convinced him to pursue a singing career. Brock moved to Nashville, Tennessee to follow this dream, but he met with little success at first. In 1994, he signed a record deal with Warner Bros. Records, but he did not release any music for over three years.

To supplement the money he made in Nashville, Brock decided to pursue a second career in professional wrestling. He trained at World Championship Wrestling's training facility, the WCW Power Plant. He wrestled for WCW from 1994 until 1996. He also appeared at several WCW events in 1999, where he was briefly involved in an angle with Curt Hennig.

In January 2009, Brock attempted to purchase a TV station in Alabama that had been previously foreclosed on. The deal required an initial $50,000 deposit to acquire the TV station and to date has never been consummated. The application to transfer the ownership of the license to Brock's group has been on public file with the FCC since April 2009 and has not been approved to date.

Musical career

In 1998, Brock released his debut single, "Evangeline", which peaked at #51 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts. This song's followup, the ballad "Ordinary Life", went on to become Brock's first major hit, reaching a peak of #3 on the same charts, as well as #39 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following that song's success, Brock released his self-titled debut album. Its third and final single, "Lightning Does the Work", reached #19 in 1999.

Brock's fourth chart single was a rewrite of Hank Williams, Jr.'s signature song "A Country Boy Can Survive", a #2 hit for Williams in 1981. This version, which featured Williams and George Jones, was entitled "A Country Boy Can Survive (Y2K Version)", was re-written with lyrics pertaining to the Year 2000 problem (abbreviated Y2K). This song served as the first single from Brock's 2000 album Yes!. Its second single was the title track, which went on to become Brock's only Number One Billboard hit, as well as a #22 hit on the Hot 100 charts. The third and final single from Yes! ("The Visit") peaked at #21, however.

2001 saw the release of Brock's third and final album for Warner Bros. Records. Entitled III, it was less successful than its predecessor. III only one chart entry in "Tell Me How", which failed to make Top 40. This album also reprised Brock's three highest-charting singles ("Yes!", "Ordinary Life" and "Lightning Does the Work"). Shortly afterward, he signed to Broken Bow Records, then a newly-formed independent label. There, he recorded his fourth studio album, entitled Free. Although five of its singles were released (with four of those five singles entering the country charts), the album itself was not shipped, and Brock exited Broken Bow's roster.

Brock left Nashville in 2005 to co-host a morning show on the Tampa, Florida station WQYK-FM along with country music parodist Cledus T. Judd. He remains on the mornins show on WQYK-FM while Cletus moved on to the Bull in Atlanta GA. In 2007, Brock signed with Rocky Comfort Records, a label which was started by Tracy Lawrence, although he did not release anything for the label. His first single in four years, "Put a Redneck in the White House", was released in August 2008 on the Straight Shooter label.

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Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad Brock