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Trace Adkins on Childhood Toys

2:03:03 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Trace Adkins traces his life from Louisiana oil rigs to country stardom, surviving a near-fatal gunshot.

  1. Small-town childhood came with genuinely dangerous toysA gas-powered car with an unguarded propeller, lawn darts that sent about 6,100 people to the emergency room in the 1980s, and boxing gloves his mother bought all three brothers one Christmas.
  2. Ten years in the oil field before NashvilleSix of those years were offshore on a drilling rig for Global Marine, and the guitar-friendly fusing of his severed little finger came out of that job.
  3. He survived a point-blank shot through the heartThe bullet passed through his heart and both lungs at muzzle velocity without mushrooming, and he needed a Dacron patch in his septum six months later.
Executive Summary AI
  • Theo introduces Trace Adkins as a Louisiana country legend with six gold and platinum albums, hits like Every Light in the House and Badonkadonk, and a 30th anniversary tour under way.0:34
  • Adkins says his mother Peggy is still the mayor of Sarepta, Louisiana, a town whose population has dropped every year since the mill eight miles away shut down, where she mostly writes letters telling people to clean their yards and once sentenced a girl to six months of Sunday school.9:27
  • He worked ten years in the oil field, six of them offshore on a Global Marine drilling rig, and after cutting his little finger off out there he asked the surgeon to fuse it in a chord position so he could still play guitar.20:54
  • His first single came out June 26, 96, thirty years ago, and while Girl in Texas stalled around 17 or 18, Every Light in the House reached number five and the two singles after it went to number one.38:18
  • The most serious story is the shooting: a wife shot him under the left arm and the bullet went straight through his heart and both lungs, and only the life flight to Vanderbilt and a second open-heart surgery six months later to patch his septum kept him alive.1:09:47
Key Quote
“Nobody else wants to do it.”
— Trace Adkins9:31
Key Quote
“I said, put it like in the sus position.”
— Trace Adkins18:50
Key Quote
“It went straight through my heart and both my lungs.”
— Trace Adkins1:09:47