Brooks and Dunn to Split Up

Kix Brooks was born as Leon Eric Brooks, III on May 12, 1955 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He has one sister, one half-sister and one half-brother. He attended Riverside Elementary School for Kindergarden through fifth grade. He graduation from the former Sewanee Military Academy and then attended Louisiana Tech University in Ruston which was where he majored in theatre arts. He then moved to Alaska to work for his father on an oil pipeline before returning to Louisiana Tech to finish his education. Afterward, he moved to Maine and wrote advertising for a company owned by his sister and brother-in-law.

Brooks marred barbara Brooks in 1981. They had two children together, a daughter named Molly and a son named Eric.

In the early 1980's, Brooks moved to Nashville and began working for Tree Publishing as a staff songwriter. He recored his first solo single for Avion in 1983 but the song failed and he returned to songwriting. He released and album called Kix Brooks in 1989 which featured the song "Sacred Ground". This song became the number two country hit for McBride and the Ride in 1992.

Ronnie Dunn was born Ronald Gene Dunn on June 1, 1953 in Coleman, Texas. He is the son of a "rambling, free spirited oil field worker" and a conservative Baptist mother. He attended thirteen schools in his first twelve years of schooling. He began school in New Mexico and finished his formal education at Abilene Christian University in 1974 and majored in psychology. Ronnie liked to play bass guitar and sing with bands in clubs in Abilene, but the university gave him the ultimatum of either quitting the band or leaving the university. He chose to leave the university and then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to take a chance at country music.

He lived in Tulsa for many years and drew his inspiration from Tulsa City Limits. Ronnie began his musical career as a solo artist. His two charted minor singles in 1983 where "It's Written All Over Your Face" and "She Put the Sad in All His Songs". It was in 1991 he and Kix Brooks formed Brooks and Dunn.

On Monday, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn of Brooks and Dunn have announced they are going to be breaking up after performing together for twenty years. They both feel it was the right time for the break up. The duo topped the United States country singles charts twenty times with tunes such as "Brand New Man" and "Only in America". They have two Grammy awards and have sold more than thirty million albums.

The duo worked as singer-songwriters in the late 1980's before they were "Brooks and Dunn" and in 1991 made their debut with their first four singles reaching the top of the United States Billboard charts for country music. They have had more than forty singles make the music charts, but only twenty of them have reached the number one slot. They have recorded ten studio albums along with two greatest-hits compilations and even a Christmas album.

RESOURCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ronnie_Dunn&printable=yes

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE57A01X20090811

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_and_dunn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kix_Brooks