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Xentel		.	Eric Heatherly
			Born and raised in Chattanooga and weaned on a diet of Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Hank Williams and Roy Orbison, Heatherly wrote his first song at age eight and made his stage debut at 13. All along, he dreamed only of making it in Nashville. A guitar prodigy by his mid-teens, he played in regional bands throughout his high-school years and from 1988 to '90 was the star of a Chattanooga college pub called Yesterday's. he finally settled in Nashville in 1991, after three years on the national honky-tonk circuit. Heatherly believed he was on his way to the top when he landed a job as a staff songwriter at Roy Orbison's company, but he was turned down repeatedly by the Music Row labels he approached about becoming a recording artist. At a time when cowboy hats and outsized belt buckles were all the rage, Heatherly sported retro threads and prominent sideburns. Like many independent-minded guitar slingers, he found himself swimming upstream. Predecessors like Vince Gill, Steve Wariner, Lee Roy Parnell, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban all faced similar initial resistance; like Heatherly, all were "Renaissance men"—not only guitarists, but singers, songwriters and producers whose maverick artistic vision proved intimidating to some among the conservative Nashville establishment. In late 1996 Heatherly settled in as a regular at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, having resolved to simply play for his own enjoyment in the Lower Broadway area, a hotbed of seedy honky-tonks. Within weeks, however, a "scene" began to develop around the charismatic performer. Women danced on the bar, college kids roared along to Heatherly's originals. There at Tootsie's, alternative rockers, hillbillies, winos, hookers, truck drivers and business executives were somehow united by the power of his music. Word naturally began to spread and soon enough, the labels that had passed on Heatherly were sending their top representatives to hear him wow the midnight barroom prowlers. And so, Eric Heatherly got a deal—and a wife; He married a Tootsie's waitress in 1999. Some will remember Heather Heatherly from her husband's "Swimming in Champagne" video. While he waited for Champagne's release, Heatherly continued to sharpen his skills as a live act. He got so good that Shania Twain hired him to back her at the 1997 CMA Awards. She also offered him a slot in her road band. But Heatherly politely declined, choosing instead to focus like a laser on his own music. Of course, he was—and is—a showman in his own right, and a showman first and foremost. "You have to move the people," he says simply. Looking back, he reflects: "Through it all, whether I had a record on the radio or not, we were always in front of people. We were packing clubs and playing festivals, opening for Montgomery Gentry, Brooks & Dunn and Brian Setzer, touring Switzerland, selling out in London. This train has kept on rolling, and I'm happy to say the fan club is getting bigger each year." With this kind of perspective, it's not unforeseen that even in his darkest days, Heatherly could still see the sunny side of life. And his positive attitude has been rewarded time and time again. Just as he was signing with DreamWorks, Heather became pregnant with their first child; the same week the label sent "The Last Man Commmitted" to radio, the couple became parents to daughter Christiana. "When I wake up in the morning, after I have breakfast, I go back to bed for 30 minutes and lay the baby on my chest," Heatherly confides. "I say,'Whatever happens to me today does not matter after this; nothing can harm me, because this is where it's at.' To be honest, during all those years when the only thing I could think about was my music, I never thought I'd be saying something like that." To be sure, Heatherly understands life differently these days. Among other things, he knows that the ups and downs of the music business are impossible to figure. So he just takes every day as it comes, hoping that if you've got the songwriting talent, the vocal ability and the guitar magic, sometimes it's just your time.

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