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.
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