Early Life
Brandon Heath Knell was born in Nashville, Tennessee on July 21, 1978. His father was a police officer, and his mother was a hair dresser. His parents divorced when he was three years old, and Heath was raised by his divorced mother for five or six years before she remarried. Heath said that during his early life, he grew bitter towards his family, but in high school he decided to " to the Lord because I wanted to learn how to forgive my dad for some mistakes that he made when I was younger. I had to forgive both of my parents for not sticking together." He was given a guitar as a Christmas gift at the age of 13, and around the same time he began writing his first songs. Heath was a choir member (The SophistiCats) at his school, Hillsboro High School in Nashville, and was encouraged by his teacher to pursue music. He also expanded his spiritual horizons by going on faith missions to India and Ecuador, thus setting the table for the mix of religion and music that would soon fuel his professional life.
Heath grew up nonreligiously, but was invited to attend a Christian Young Life camp as a teenager. While attending the summer camp at age 16, Heath said he "heard about Jesus for the first time"; he said he never really went to church until attending the camp, and claimed that Young Life "showed me Christ and got me plugged in to a church". After high school, he became a leader for the camp and is still involved with Young Life across the United States. Heath attended Middle Tennessee State University and earned a BA in English. After his guitar was stolen in early 2000, he compiled a demo CD of his songs for sale to help pay for a new guitar.
Read more about this topic: Brandon Heath
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)