Jennifer Nettles

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A Mercury Records publicity photo of Jennifer Nettles.

Jennifer Nettles (born September 12, 1974 in Douglas, Georgia) is a Grammy winner and the lead singer of the Grammy-nominated country music band Sugarland.

Nettles began performing in Georgia in her childhood at school assemblies, her Southern Baptist church, and regional theater.

While a student at Agnes Scott College, Nettles and Cory Jones (who at the time was studying classical guitar at the University of Georgia) formed Soul Miner’s Daughter. The group, which performed as both an acoustic duo and with a band, released two albums, The Sacred and Profane in 1996 and Hallelujah in 1998, both of which were comprised of songs written collaboratively by Jones and Nettles. [1]

In 1999, she formed the Jennifer Nettles Band, with which she produced three studio and two live albums. She and her band were invited to perform at Lillith Fair in 1999 and received the 2000 "Independent Musician of the Year" award from Musician's Atlas.

She moved away from the introspective and sometimes dark themes of her solo work when she teamed up with Kristen Hall and Kristian Bush in 2003 to form Sugarland (Hall has since left the group). On her Web site, she says the following of the transition:

"Sugarland's music tells a story that people can relate to on a really human day-to-day level. But they're fun stories. They're light stories. It's music that's not taking itself too seriously.

"In my own singer/songwriter work, I did more of that kind of self-exploration, a little bit more processing of life on a heavier scale. Sugarland is more for the sake of fun, and people relate to our energy on stage. Everybody has a collective good time."

Sugarland was nominated for a Grammy award in the Best New Artist category. They did not win the award, but Nettles and Bush performed on the nationally televised awards show in February 2006, and Nettles presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Merle Haggard and presented the award for Best Country Group.

Nettles also is seeing success outside of Sugarland. A duet performance with rock band Bon Jovi, "Who Says You Can't Go Home?", has reached No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. The video for the song won a CMT Music Award in 2006 for "Collaborative Video Of The Year". In February of 2007, Nettles and Bon Jovi won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration. In 2006, Kristen Hall left the group and Nettles and Bush continued on as a duo releasing "Enjoy the Ride" in November of 2006.

[edit] Personal information

Nettles grew up in the small town of Douglas, Georgia. She is married to Todd Van Sickle. They have no children and live in the Atlanta area.

In high school, Nettles was a majorette in her high school's marching band. She was also active in 4-H during school and during college was a camp counselor at Rock Eagle 4-H Center 1993-95. She was Muskogee Princess (co-leader of her "tribe") in 1995.

She used her first royalty checks from her Sugarland hits to pay off her college loans and buy a house.