Brooks & Dunn
The duo that put the boogie in every boot-scootin' bar of the '90s. Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn were paired by a record executive in 1988, sent their first four singles to number one, and turned "Boot Scootin' Boogie" into the song that dragged line dancing back onto America's dance floors.
Neither man set out to be half of a duo. Kix Brooks, born in Shreveport in 1955, spent the 1980s as a Nashville songwriter with number-one cuts for John Conlee and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and a 1989 solo album on Capitol. Ronnie Dunn, born in Coleman, Texas, in 1953, had briefly studied theology to become a Baptist preacher before he was kicked out of school for playing in bars. In 1989 a session drummer entered Dunn in a Marlboro talent contest; he won, the prize was a Nashville recording session, and the tapes reached Tim DuBois at Arista Nashville. DuBois put the two together as songwriters, heard the demo, and suggested they become an act.
Their first single, "Brand New Man," hit the country chart in June 1991 and went to number one, and so did the next three: "My Next Broken Heart," "Neon Moon," and "Boot Scootin' Boogie," a song Dunn had written about a Texas-style honky-tonk and that Asleep at the Wheel had already recorded in 1990. The boogie had been a B-side until it became the fourth single, crossed to number 50 on the Hot 100, and set off a renewed national interest in line dancing; the video was shot at the Tulsa City Limits nightclub, and a dance remix landed on 1993's Hard Workin' Man. The debut album has since been certified seven-times platinum.
The pairing worked because of the contrast. AllMusic's Steve Huey described Dunn as "the quietly intense singer with the soulful voice, while Kix Brooks played the part of the high-energy showman," and the hits kept the formula running through the decade: a Grammy for "Hard Workin' Man," the 1996 cover of "My Maria" that spent three weeks at number one and made them the first duo to win the CMA's Entertainer of the Year, a double-headline tour with Reba McEntire in 1997, and "Ain't Nothing 'bout You," the top country song of 2001.
They announced a split in August 2009 and played a last show at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on September 2, 2010, then reunited for Las Vegas dates with Reba in 2015 and entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2019. In November 2025 a sixteenth Vocal Duo of the Year trophy gave them their twentieth CMA Award, more than anyone in the show's history.
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