Rockie Lynne may be one of the newest artists on the country music scene, but his musical career is a lifetime in the making. Lynne grew up in a small town in North Carolina. He was raised in a strict Baptist town, but had a secret love for music. In seventh grade, he got both a guitar and a record player and got to work. He secretly had records that his parents wouldn't have approved of, like Jimi Hendrix and KISS. He played in different bands throughout high school and was already writing his own songs before joining the Army following graduation. In the Army, he was introduced to a guitar player, Jimmy Herring, who helped deepen Lynne's passion.After spending three years in active duty, Lynne left the Army, took his G.I. Bill and enrolled in the Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles, California. The small-town boy had quite the eye-opening in Los Angeles and also started to excel at music as well as be influenced by a variety of genres. His real passion, however, was always country music. After leaving G.I.T., he started touring as a guitarist with performer Mike Shane, who he had met in Myrtle Beach.From there, Lynne was ready to make it big in country music, so he moved to Nashville in the early 1990s. He started playing guitar for artists like Noel Haggard, but had little success finding a solo career. He left Nashville and started playing in clubs around the country and selling homemade CDs at his shows. Lynne slowly started gaining a small but loyal fan base when he settled in Minnesota. It was at one of those shows that he was heard by Warner Bros. exec Bruce Larson. The meeting eventually led to a deal with Universal South, and Lynne released his successful self-titled debut in 2006.