Born in Pensacola, Florida, but raised in upstate South Carolina, Tippin performed in local honky-tonks in the 1970s. He competed on TNN's "You Can Be A Star" talent contest in 1986, landed a song publishing contract and moved to Nashville in 1987. During this time he wrote songs for The Kingsmen, David Ball, The Midsouth Boys, Mark Collie, and Charlie Pride. He would spend his nights working at a mill in Kentucky and spend his days driving 60 miles to Nashville to write songs.

Tippin performed his first Nashville nightclub show in 1990, and it earned him a contract with RCA records. His first single, "You've Got to Stand for Something", cracked the top 10 in 1991 and allowed him to go to the Persian Gulf with Bob Hope, to entertain the troops. Then, in 1992, Aaron's single "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong With the Radio" stayed at No. 1 for three weeks.

In 1995, Tippin married Thea Corontzos, and he, Thea, and his manager, Billy Craven, created Tippin's company, Tip Top Entertainment. Tippin also opened two hunting supply stores called Aaron Tippin Firearms. One is located close to where he lives in Smithville, Tennessee, and the other run by his father in Oak City, North Carolina.

In 1998, Tippin moved to Lyric Street Records and charted a No.1 hit with "Kiss This", co-written with his wife Thea in 2000. In the wake of 9/11, his patriotic anthem, "Where the Stars and Stripes and Eagle Fly", peaked at No. 2. Both songs crossed over onto the Hot 100 charts; in fact, "Stars And Stripes" was his biggest crossover hit.

In 2006, Tippin started up his own record label, Nippit Records; the label's name is "Tippin" spelled backwards.

Other facts

* Survived lightning strikes on (at least) seven different occasions.

* Was granted pilot licence when he was 15

Aaron Dupree Tippin (born July 3, 1958 in Pensacola, Florida) is an American country music artist and record producer. Initially a songwriter for Acuff-Rose Music, he gained a recording contract with RCA Records in 1990. His debut single, "You've Got to Stand for Something" became a popular anthem for American soldiers fighting in the Gulf War and helped to establish him as a neotraditionalist country act with songs that catered primarily to the American working class. Under RCA's tenure, he recorded five studio albums and a Greatest Hits package. By the later half of the 1990s, however, his sales and chart performance began to decline, and he was dropped from the label's roster.

Tippin switched to Lyric Street Records in 1998, where he recorded four more studio albums, counting a compilation of Christmas music. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, he released the patriotic anthem "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly"; although it was his most successful crossover single, he saw his popularity decline a second time after its release. After parting ways with Lyric Street in 2006, he founded a personal label known as Nippit Records, on which he issued the compilation album Now & Then. A concept album, In Overdrive, was released in 2009.

Tippin has released a total of nine studio albums and two compilations, with five gold certifications and one platinum certification among them. In addition, he has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including three Number Ones: "There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio" (1992), "That's as Close as I'll Get to Loving You" (1995), and "Kiss This" (2000), as well as the Top Ten hits "You've Got to Stand for Something", "I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way", "My Blue Angel", "Working Man's Ph.D", "For You I Will", and "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly".