Kid Rock

Kid Rock–A Brief Biography

Poor boy, nasty boy, rich boy, popular boy….

Kid Rock was born Robert James Ritchie on January 17, 1971. By the early 1980s, he was a performer—an eleven-year-old break-boy with The Furious Funkers.

In high school, Robert or Bobby bought a turntable, deejayed for beer at local parties, and then took a gig with Groove Time Productions, where he played a few shows and where after Bo Wisdom noted the audience loved watching “that white kid rock,” he took his name, Kid Rock. After deejaying and emceeing a few more venues, Kid Rock was invited to do a bit on stage, and at 19 was now signed for a record deal with Jive Records—releasing his first album.

Nasty as it was, the first piece to be made a single got little airplay and as a result low sales. This incited Jive Records to drop Kid Rock, who went on to get a deal with Continuum Records. But again, the second album was not popular enough, the single didn’t make the charts, and Continuum in bankruptcy, Kid was without representation again.

So he started his own label.

Besides heading Top Dog, Kid was forming Twisted Brown Trucker, doing janitorial jobs to cover recording costs, and selling post-concert LPs of his third album from the trunk of his car. He was making a small name for himself in his home state; now he had to make it big. He did a special “showcase” concert, hoping to draw the attention of invited labels, Atlantic the only one of whom showed.
When Atlantic expressed equal interest but reticence about the “strength” of Rock’s material, he laid two more tracks, pitched them to Atlantic, and within hours had them (Jason Flom and company) calling to offer him “anything he wanted.”

In a “Behind the Music” biography, he tells interviewers how one week he is wicked broke, the next he is pulling out of his closet shoe boxes full of money.

From poverty and persistence combined, Kid Rock would go from there to over a dozen albums, several movie soundtracks, a few movie appearances, a number of Grammy Award nominations, a Billboard Music Video Award, a “Favorite Male Pop/Rock” accolade at the American Music Awards…and, of course, a marriage to Pamela Anderson.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.