Chris Cagle

Biography

Cagle was born in DeRidder, Louisiana on November 10, 1968; by the time he was four years old, his family moved to Sugar Land, Texas, just outside Houston, Texas. He stayed there until moving to Baytown, Texas in high school. During his high school years, he took piano lessons before switching to guitar. His senior year he moved to White Settlement, Texas, where he attended Brewer High School before moving back to Baytown and graduating from Ross S. Sterling High School in 1987. After graduating high school, he attended University of Texas at Arlington for one year. He skipped his finance courses to audit music classes, and performed at night in nearby clubs. Chris also spent a brief period attending classes at Lee College in Baytown Texas. Cagle later dropped out of college. Chris moved to Nashville in 1994 at the behest of entertainment attorney Rod Phelps. Chris told Phelps that he "...had no place to live, no job, and no money". Phelps hired Cagle as a nanny for Phelps' three daughters, Shayna, Ashley and Tiffany, by his wife Sheila Wagnon. Chris remained for several months. While in Nashville, Cagle was waiting tables and tending bar while working to improve himself as a songwriter. One big break came when he met the legendary Harlan Howard, who was so impressed with Chris's songwriting progress that he was the first to publish one of his songs. Chris then landed a publishing deal and had songs recorded by David Kersh. A woman he met while waiting tables led him to Virgin Records head Scott Hendricks, who signed him to a label deal. He currently lives in Love County, Oklahoma.

Musical career

For the next five years he worked odd jobs throughout Nashville, eventually landing a songwriting deal and co-writing album tracks for David Kersh. While working at a restaurant, he was discovered by an agent of the newly formed Nashville division of Virgin Records, and was signed to a recording deal with the label in 2000.

2000-2002: Play It Loud

Cagle's first album, Play It Loud, was issued in mid-2000. Serving as its lead-off single was "My Love Goes On and On", which reached a peak of number 15 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts, while "Laredo", its follow-up, became his first Top Ten hit in mid-2001. After Virgin closed in 2001, the album was re-issued on Capitol Records with "I Breathe In, I Breathe Out" (which was also one of the songs that he had written for David Kersh in the late 1990s) added as a bonus track. Its b-side, "Country by the Grace of God," was the fourth and final single from the album. "I Breathe In, I Breathe Out" became his only number one hit in early 2002. By the end of the year, Play It Loud had been certified gold in the United States.

2003-2004: Chris Cagle

Capitol released Cagle's second album, Chris Cagle, in the middle of 2003. His second consecutive gold album, it produced the Top 5 singles "What a Beautiful Day" and "Chicks Dig It", as well as the number 39-peaking "I'd Be Lying".

In 2003, Cagle also performed "Don't Ask Me No Questions" for the Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie soundtrack, which also plays during the end credits of the film.

In early 2004, Cagle was diagnosed with multiple anomalies on his vocal cords, including a polyp, a lesion, a vocal fold cyst, and a granuloma. The diagnosis forced Cagle to cancel nearly twenty appearances that year, including opening dates for Rascal Flatts. He was ordered sixty days of vocal rest, although he did not sing for nearly three months after the diagnosis.

2005-2006: Anywhere but Here

After his vocal recovery, Cagle began work on his third studio album, Anywhere but Here, which was released in 2005. "Miss Me Baby" served as the album's first single, reaching a peak of 12 on the country music charts. The other two singles — "Wal-Mart Parking Lot" and the title track, which had also been a single for Brice Long in 2005 — both failed to enter the Top 40.

In August 2006, a Nashville judge ordered Cagle to pay approximately $737,000 to former manager Mark Hybner, whom Chris had sued in 2004 in an effort to void management and publishing deals he had signed in 1999.

2007-2010: My Life's Been a Country Song and The Best of Chris Cagle

His eleventh single, "What Kinda Gone", was released to country radio in late 2007. Peaking at number 3, it was the lead-off single to his fourth studio album My Life's Been a Country Song, which was released on February 19, 2008. The second single from the album, "No Love Songs", was released in May; it debuted and peaked at number 53 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of May 24, 2008. "Never Ever Gone" did not chart, and Cagle parted ways with Capitol Nashville by year's end. The label released a greatest hits album in 2010 titled The Best of Chris Cagle.

2010-2013: Back in the Saddle

In 2010, Cagle signed with the Bigger Picture Music Group. He released a new single, "Got My Country On", on June 28, 2011. The song became Cagle's first top 20 country hit since "What Kinda Gone". His first album for the label, Back in the Saddle, was released on June 26, 2012. The album produced two more singles, "Let There Be Cowgirls" and "Dance Baby Dance". Bigger Picture Music Group became defunct in 2013. In October 2015, Cagle announced his retirement from country music.

Personal life

Cagle graduated from Ross S. Sterling High School in Baytown, Texas in 1987.

He married school teacher Elizabeth Filer on September 10, 2001 in Houston, Texas, but the marriage ended in divorce in 2003. On October 3, 2005, he announced on his web site that he was not the biological father of his then-girlfriend's baby. Cagle is a brother of the Missouri Theta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta.

In 2008, Cagle and his girlfriend, Jennifer Tant, were jailed following a domestic assault issue for which Cagle was arrested in November 2007.

In December 2010, Cagle married his second wife, Kay, and became a stepfather to her daughter from a previous marriage, Chloe. Cagle has two biological daughters with Kay; Stella (born in April 2010) and Piper (born in 2011).

On December 15, 2013, he was arrested in Greenville, Texas on "suspicion of driving while intoxicated".

Discography