Keith Gattis

Born on May 26, 1971, in Austin, Texas, country singer Keith Gattis began making music when he was 16, putting together a trio that played around his hometown. He eventually helped organize another act that won a statewide Future Farmers of America (FFA) talent competition, with one of the prizes being the opportunity to play before more than 20,000 people at the organization’s national convention. During college, Gattis became more serious about his songwriting and guitar-playing. Upon graduation, he moved to Nashville, landing a job in a music store, and quickly set to playing out anywhere that he could. By 1991, he was working with Sammy Kershaw’s management and secured a record deal with RCA. His self-titled debut arrived in April 1996, with a sound rooted in traditional country that endeared Gattis to critics and purists but failed to capture the fancy of the mainstream market. It proved to be Gattis’ only major-label release, but he issued a second LP for the independent Smith Entertainment imprint in 2006, Big City Blues, that showed a greater contemporary pop influence. After its release cycle came and went, Gattis occasionally toured and had a consistently successful career behind the scenes — he wrote songs for Randy Travis, George Strait, Willie Nelson, and Kenny Chesney, played on sessions with Dwight Yoakam, Bruce Robison, and Jon Pardi, and produced releases for Randy Houser, Wade Bowen, and Cory Morrow. A tractor accident took Keith Gattis’ life on April 23, 2023; he was 52. ~ Tom Demalon & Mark Deming