Happy Birthday Garth Brooks

in all of U.S. history, neck-and-neck with Elvis. He spoke humbly about his success to Larry King: You know Nashville, there's people that are ten times more talented than me, ten times better singer than me, song writer than me, but for some reason you get the ball and now -- and now you run with it. And you do the best you can.

Brooks grew up Tulsa in a musical family; his mother performed as Colleen Carroll and recorded for Capitol Records. While growing up, he was more interested in sports than music, but he found his way to performing in college.

He and his wife, Sandy, had been married fifteen years before they divorced, but they agreed to move back to Oklahoma together for the sake of their children. Said Brooks, The main thing --you can stop being husband and wife, but you don't stop being mom and dad.

Brooks married Tricia Yearwood, a fellow country music performer whom hes called more talented than he is. They married in 2005, while he was still living with his first wife and family.

It was musician Steve Wynn who convinced him to come out of his eight-year-long retirement. He convinced Brooks that performing in Vegas, for which he signed a five-year contract in 09, wouldnt take him away from his family too much. Why? The two-hour time difference between Vegas and his Oklahoma home.

Brookss August, 1997 concert in the park wound up filling the place: it was the largest concert crowd the location had ever seen. He still claimed watching his daughters soccer game after he retired from the concert tour was more thrilling than the performance.

President Obama asked Brooks to ring, or sing, him in. It was awesome, Brooks said on CNN. It was neat to look out over the water and see the Washington Monument. Look over your right and see the future president of the United States. But the great thing about that day was we all believed in that one word, change.

Brooks wont sell his songs on iTunes, saying hes concerned about illegal downloads and their pricing. His stance hasnt hurt his record-holding record sales.

I love the idea of the Scarecrow, he said, discussing his last album before his 2001 retirement. A guy who is brainless, but has a heart. He has a liver, too, and offered to donate part of it to his ailing friend and mentor, Chris LeDoux. Sadly, after a painful test, his liver was proven incompatible.

His show includes personal stories and solo guitar, and Brooks describes it as terrifying. He also held a concert for flood relief in Nashville in late December of 2010, the first time hed performed there since 1998. I can't imagine things going better for me right now, he said to Larry King in late 2010.