Dan Colehour

A country roots rocker with a heartland vibe in the vein of Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp, Dan Colehour was born and raised in the very heart of the Midwest in the small town of Mt. Vernon, IA. He played drums in assorted country, rock, and polka bands in the region before deciding to concentrate on singing and writing his own songs. He moved to southern California when he was 21 years old, but after his parents settled in San Antonio, TX, he joined them there, spending seven years in San Antonio playing the local songwriters' circuit before moving on to Austin and from there, at the age of 29, to Nashville. In Nashville he met producer Frank Liddell, who was enthusiastic about Colehour's songs, and he soon signed a publishing deal with Carnival Publishing and in turn garnered a recording deal with DreamWorks. Colehour began working in the studio with Liddell, making good use of the guitar talents of David Grissom, and they soon had a ten-song album ready. His album deal was shuffled to the bottom of the pile, though, when DreamWorks was subsequently absorbed by Universal, and the album, for all practical purposes, was dead in the water. Trisha Yearwood and Montgomery Gentry recorded a couple of Colehour's songs, however, which kept his name bouncing around in Nashville, and eventually executive Luke Lewis, who was slowly working his way through the various DreamWorks projects Universal had inherited, stumbled across the master tapes for the album and was pleased with what he heard. The album, called Straight to the Highway, was finally released in 2007 under a joint agreement with Universal and Carnival Records. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide