Brooks & Dunn are an American country music duo consisting of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, both of whom are vocalists and songwriters. The duo was founded in 1988 through the suggestion of songwriter and record producer, Tim DuBois. Before their formation, both members were solo recording artists, having each charted two solo singles in the 1980s. Kix Brooks also released an album for Capitol Records in 1989 and wrote hit singles for other artists.
The duo signed to Arista Nashville after their formation. They have recorded eleven studio albums, one Christmas album, and five compilation albums for the label. They also have released 50 singles, of which 20 went to number one on the Hot Country Songs charts and 19 more reached top 10. Two of these number-one songs, "My Maria" (a posthumous cover of the 1973 B. W. Stevenson hit) and "Ain't Nothing 'bout You", were the top country songs of 1996 and 2001, respectively, according to the Billboard Year-End charts. The latter is also the duo's longest-lasting number-one single on that chart at six weeks. Several of their songs have also reached the Billboard Hot 100, with the number-25 peaks of "Ain't Nothing 'bout You" and "Red Dirt Road" being their highest there. Brooks and Dunn also hold the record for most Country Music Association Awards wins in history, with twenty, including the top honor Entertainer of the Year in 1996. They received the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony in 2026. Two of their songs won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal: "Hard Workin' Man" in 1994 and "My Maria" in 1996. All but two of the duo's studio albums are certified platinum or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America; their highest-certified is their 1991 debut album, Brand New Man, which is certified sextuple-platinum for shipments of six million copies.
The duo's material is known for containing influences of honky-tonk, mainstream country, and rock, as well as the contrast between their singing voices and on-stage personalities, although some of their music has also been criticized as formulaic. Their 1992 single "Boot Scootin' Boogie" helped repopularize line dancing in the United States, and 2001's "Only in America" was used by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama in their respective presidential campaigns. Brooks and Dunn have collaborated with several artists, including Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Sheryl Crow, Mac Powell, Billy Gibbons, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Luke Combs.
After announcing their retirement in August 2009, they performed their final concert on September 2, 2010, at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. Both Brooks and Dunn have continued to record for Arista Nashville as solo artists. Dunn released a self-titled album in 2011, which included the top-10 country hit "Bleed Red", while Brooks released New to This Town in September 2012. The duo reunited in 2015 for a series of concerts with Reba McEntire in Las Vegas. In 2019, the duo was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
History
Kix Brooks Leon Eric "Kix" Brooks III was born on May 12, 1955, in Shreveport, Louisiana, and before moving to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1976, he played at various venues in Maine. He was also a neighbor of country singer Johnny Horton. Brooks worked as a songwriter in the 1980s, co-writing the number-one singles "I'm Only in It for the Love" by John Conlee, "Modern Day Romance" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and "Who's Lonely Now" by Highway 101, plus The Oak Ridge Boys' Top 20 hit "You Made a Rock of a Rolling Stone", Nicolette Larson's "Let Me Be the First", and Keith Palmer's "Don't Throw Me in the Briarpatch". Brooks also released several singles through the independent Avion label, charting at No. 73 on Hot Country Songs in 1983 with "Baby, When Your Heart Breaks Down". In 1989, he released a self-titled studio album through Capitol Records. This album included "Baby, When Your Heart Breaks Down" and "Sacred Ground", which McBride & the Ride covered and took to No. 2 on the country charts in 1992. Brooks and Pam Tillis co-wrote and sang on "Tomorrow's World", a multi-artist single released on Warner Bros. Records in 1990 in honor of Earth Day.Whitburn, p. 424 Brooks also co-produced and co-wrote "Backbone Job", a Keith Whitley outtake that appeared on his 1991 compilation album, Kentucky Bluebird.
Ronnie Dunn Ronnie Gene Dunn was born on June 1, 1953, in Coleman, Texas. He played bass guitar in local bands during high school, and he briefly studied theology at Hardin-Simmons University with the intention of becoming a Baptist preacher. Dunn was "kicked out" of the school because he played in bars. Between 1983 and 1984, he recorded for the Churchill label, taking both "It's Written All Over Your Face" and "She Put the Sad in All His Songs" to number 59 on the country charts.Whitburn, p. 133 In 1989, session drummer Jamie Oldaker entered Dunn in a talent contest sponsored by Marlboro, which he won. The grand prize in the competition included a recording session in Nashville, Tennessee. The producer of that session, Scott Hendricks, recommended Dunn's recordings to Tim DuBois, then an executive of Arista Nashville. DuBois paired Brooks and Dunn because he thought that they would work well together as songwriters, and after the two recorded a demo, he suggested that they form a duo. During this timespan, Dunn also wrote "Boot Scootin' Boogie", which Asleep at the Wheel recorded on their 1990 album, Keepin' Me Up Nights.
Musical career Brand New Man Brooks and Dunn's first single, "Brand New Man", entered the Hot Country Songs charts in June 1991 and went to number one. It was the title track to the duo's debut album, Brand New Man, which was released two months later. Brooks and Dunn wrote this song and several other cuts in collaboration with songwriter Don Cook, who co-produced the album with Hendricks. It was also Cook's first credit as a producer. The next three single releases from Brand New Man ("My Next Broken Heart", "Neon Moon", and their own rendition of "Boot Scootin' Boogie") all made number one on the country music charts, as well, making for the first time in country-music history that a duo or group had sent its first four singles to the top of the charts. A fifth single, "Lost and Found", peaked at number six. "Boot Scootin' Boogie", which had previously been the B-side to "My Next Broken Heart", also made number 50 on the Billboard Hot 100, and its commercial success led to a renewed interest in line dancing throughout the United States. Brand New Man was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in August 1992 for shipments of one million copies; by 2002, the album had been certified sextuple-platinum for shipments of six million. It spent more than 190 weeks on the Top Country Albums charts. In 1992, the duo won the Duo of the Year Award from the Country Music Association, which also nominated them for that year's Album of the Year and Horizon awards. Brooks and Dunn won the association's Duo award for every year from then until 2006, except for 2000, when the award went to Montgomery Gentry. After the album's release, Brooks & Dunn began touring as well.
Brand New Man received a positive review from AllMusic, whose critic Daniel Gioffre thought that the album showed the duo's diversity of musical influences. Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly was less positive, criticizing the duo's sound for being "imitative".
Hard Workin' Man and Waitin' on Sundown Hard Workin' Man was the title of Brooks and Dunn's second album, which was released in 1993. The title track, also its first single, peaked at number four on the country music charts. The album included two number-one singles in its third and fifth releases: "She Used to Be Mine" and its B-side, "That Ain't No Way to Go". "We'll Burn That Bridge" and "Rock My World (Little Country Girl)" (respectively the second and fourth releases) both made top five on Billboard, with the former reaching number one on Radio & Records. Also included on the album was a remix of "Boot Scootin' Boogie". In 1994, "Hard Workin' Man" won the duo a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and the album was nominated for Best Country Album. Hard Workin' Man earned its highest RIAA certification in 2002, when it was certified quintuple platinum. Brian Mansfield gave a generally positive review in Allmusic, saying that its up-tempo songs "rocked harder" than any of the songs from the first album.
By the end of 1994, the duo released their third studio album, Waitin' on Sundown. It also produced five charting singles, three of which made number one on the country charts: "She's Not the Cheatin' Kind", "Little Miss Honky Tonk", and "You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone". The other two singles, "I'll Never Forgive My Heart" and "Whiskey Under the Bridge", both made top 10. Allmusic critic Thom Owens thought that the album's singles were "solid", but that the rest of the songs were "filler". A review of the single "She's Not the Cheatin' Kind" from the same site praised it for its "hard-driving, honky-tonk spirit". Nash praised the honky-tonk sound of "I'll Never Forgive My Heart", but thought that most of the other songs relied on "contrivance". Randy Lewis of the Orlando Sentinel gave a generally positive review, saying that the "minidrama" of "A Few Good Rides Away" (which Brooks co-wrote) was the strongest track on the album.
Borderline The first single from Brooks and Dunn's fourth album, Borderline, was a cover version of B.W. Stevenson's 1973 single "My Maria". Their version of the song spent three weeks at number one in mid-1996 and peaked at number 79 on the Billboard Hot 100; it was also that year's top country song according to the Billboard Year-End charts. Dunn said that he was initially reluctant to record "My Maria" because the duo had not previously recorded any cover songs. The song won Brooks and Dunn its second Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Group or Duo, and the duo won the 1996 Entertainer of the Year award from both the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music, making them the first duo to win that award from the former. In 1997, Brooks & Dunn joined a double-headliner tour with Reba McEntire. Borderline produced another number one in "A Man This Lonely", along with the top-10 hits "I Am That Man" and "Why Would I Say Goodbye". "Mama Don't Get Dressed Up for Nothing", the third single and B-side to "My Maria", became their first release not to make the top 10.
Michael McCall of Allmusic and Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly both thought that the album's material was "cliché" and that "My Maria" was the strongest song on it. A more positive review came from Larry Stephens of Country Standard Time, who thought that the album had "the right mix" of songs.
The Greatest Hits Collection and If You See Her Their first greatest hits compilation was released on September 16, 1997. It comprised most of their singles to that point and three new songs: "Honky Tonk Truth", "He's Got You", and "Days of Thunder". The first two were released as singles, with respective peaks of three and two on the country charts. The Greatest Hits Collection was certified platinum in April 1998, and double-platinum in 2001.