46th Annual Academy Of Country Music Awards - Rehearsals
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Today we turn the focus on a group out of Atlanta, GA, whose leader starting playing guitar at 8 years old, and who learned to play from a patient of his step-father's, who was a dentist. The patient taught him how to play classical guitar, and after two years of lessons, he developed a love of bluegrass from playing alongside of his father and brother.

Zac Brown was in his mid-teens when he began playing around the Gainsville, Ga area, covering pop and country hits. By the time he enrolled in college at the University of West Georgia in 1996, Brown was touring across southern Georgia with a drummer and his dog, Pete, laying the foundation for the Zac Brown Band.. In 2002, with a touring schedule in the range of 200 dates a year, Brown was backed by drummer Marcus Patruska and a continually changing bass player.

2014 CMA Festival - Day 4
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In 2004 Brown, along with his father, opened a restaurant in Lake Ocenee, GA, called Zac's Place. Before long a developer made them an offer for the restaurant, and Zac took the money from the sale to buy a tour bus. Zac returned to full time touring, playing rock and country clubs and festivals. They released their first album, Home Grown, on their own independent label.

Prior to recording the first album, Brown had agreed to let the group The Lost Trailers record a song he had written while he was touring called "Chicken Fried", but only under the agreement that it would be only an album track, and would not be released as a single. Both sides agreed, but when The Lost Trailers submitted it among tracks for a new album, the group's brand new label, Sony Nashville (whom they had only recently singed with), the label decided that the song they wanted as a single and released it to country radio. Brown, feeling the agreement had been violated, so he had his lawyers issue a cease and desist order on Sony Records, forcing them to pull the single off radio. The incident branded Brown as an artist not afraid to stand up to record companies, and who did things his own way.

2012 CMA Music Festival - Day 1
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Zac Brown and the Zac Brown Band continue to do things their own way. Their most recent album, Jekyl & Hyde, lived up to its name for its refusal to fit into a preordained genre. After signing with Big Machine Records in 2015, the group released the album's lead single "Home Grown" which went on to top the country chart. Also included on the album was the pop-flavored song "Mango Tree" which they recorded with Sara Bareilles, "Junkyard", which sampled from Pink Floyd's "Is Anybody Out There?" and also the #1 hit on the rock charts "Heavy Is The Head", which featured Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audio Slave.

Along the way, the band has grown a lot from the days of Brown, a drummer and Pete. In addition to Brown, DeMartini and Hopkins, the Zac Brown now features Coy Bowles, Clay Cook, Daniel de los Reyes and Chris Fryar, along with its most recent addition, Matt Mangano. With 6 studio albums, 2 live albums and a Greatest Hits album under their belt, with 16 top-10 and 13 #1 singles on the country charts, the Zac Brown Band has proven that "their way" works for them. The fourth single to be released to country radio from the album Jekyl & Hyde is in our spotlight today. The Zac Brown Band and "Castaway" is today's Catch of the Day, new music you haven't heard, but you'll want to hear it again.

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