Ryan Adams (born David Ryan Adams on November 5, 1974) is an alt-country and rock and roll singer/songwriter from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Adams dropped out of high school at 16 to work in a shoe shop and make music. He formed a band named Whiskeytown in 1994; they disbanded in 1999. Adams went on to put out his first solo record, Heartbreaker, in 2000.
Ryan Adams is a highly prolific artist, releasing seven albums by December 2005. He has also produced an album by Jesse Malin, contributed to Beth Orton, the Wallflowers and Counting Crows albums, dated Winona Ryder, Alanis Morisette, Beth Orton, Leona Naess, Carrie Hamilton, and Parker Posey, performed specials with Elton John (who refers to him as "Oh Fabulous One"), Willie Nelson, and Toots & the Maytals, and found time to release a punk record with Jesse Malin under the name The Finger. Additionally, at least ten other session recordings can be found floating around the internet.
Ryan started out as a punk artist in a band known as The Patty Duke Syndrome. They released two songs in 1994 on a 7" single (two songs on one side, the other side was a band called GlamourPuss). Ryan described punk rock as "too hard to sing" in the song "Faithless Street" by his new outfit, Whiskeytown. Whiskeytown was part of the burgeoning alt-country movement which traces its roots to the work of a number of artists, most notably Gram Parsons and Uncle Tupelo. Following the success of Wilco and Son Volt, Whiskeytown quickly moved to the front of the pack in this movement with the release of their second full-length album, Stranger's Almanac. Being a member of a band was too stifling for Ryan's creativity - the only band member able to tolerate Ryan throughout was Caitlin Cary, the rest came and went in rapid succession. Their last album together, 2001's Pneumonia was held up by legal troubles and didn't come out until two years after Ryan had disbanded the band and gone solo, and then as a sort of work-up for Gold.
