Did you know that these people are Rednecks?
Andy Griffith 
Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, the only child of Geneva (née Nunn) and Carl Lee Griffith. To this day, Mount Airy annually celebrates Griffith and his eponymous television series with "Mayberry Days".
At a very young age, Griffith had to live with relatives until his parents could afford to get a home of their own. Without a crib or a bed, Andy slept in drawers for a few months. In 1929, when Griffith was 3, his father took a job working as a carpenter and was finally able to purchase a home. Like his mother, Andy grew up listening to music. By the time he entered school he was well aware that he was from what many considered the "wrong side of the tracks". He was a shy student, but once he found a way to make his peers laugh, he began to come into his own. As a student at Mount Airy High School, Andy cultivated an interest in the arts and he participated in the school's drama program. A growing love of music would change his life. Griffith looked up to Ed Mickey, a minister at Grace Moravian Church, who led the brass band and taught Andy to sing and play the trombone. Mickey nurtured Griffith's talent throughout high school until graduation in 1944. Griffith was delighted when he was offered a role in The Lost Colony, a play still performed today in the historic Outer Banks of coastal North Carolina. He performed as a cast member of the play for several years, playing a variety of roles, until he finally landed the role of Sir Walter Raleigh, the namesake of North Carolina's capital.
He began college studying to be a Moravian preacher, but changed his major to music. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1949. While at UNC, he was president of the UNC Men's Glee Club and was a member of the Alpha Rho Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, America's oldest fraternity for men in music. After graduation, he taught English at Goldsboro High School, in Goldsboro, NC, for a few years.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Jay Laurence Lush
Jay Laurence Lush (January 3, 1896, Shambaugh, Iowa - May 22, 1982) was a pioneering animal geneticist who made important contributions to livestock breeding. He is sometimes known as the father of modern scientific animal breeding. Lush received National Medal of Science in 1968 and the Wolf Prize in 1979.
Lush was introduced to mathematics and genetics during his B.Sc. studies of animal husbandry at the Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University [KSU]). He completed his M.Sc. in 1918 at KSU, and his Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1922).
Lush advocated breeding not based on subjective appearance of the animal, but on quantitative statistics and genetic information. Lush authored a classic book 'Animal Breeding Plans' in 1937 which greatly influenced animal breeding around the world.
From 1930 to 1966, Lush was the Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture at Iowa State University. He elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1967.
Lush won the Borden Award for research in dairy production from the American Dairy Science Association and both the Armour Award for animal breeding and genetics and the Morrison Award from the American Society of Animal Science.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Willie Nelson 
Nelson was born and raised in Abbott, Texas, the son of Myrle and Ira D. Nelson, who was a mechanic and pool hall owner. His grandparents William Alfred Nelson and Nancy Elizabeth Smothers gave him mail-order music lessons starting at age six. He wrote his first song when he was seven and was playing in a local band at age nine. Willie played the guitar, while his sister Bobbie played the piano. He met Bud Fletcher, a fiddler, and two siblings joined his band, Bohemian Fiddlers, while Nelson was in high school. While he was in high school he took part in the National FFA Organization (formerly known as the Future Farmers of America).
Beginning in high school Nelson worked as a disc jockey for local radio stations. Nelson had short DJ stints with KHBR in Hillsboro, Texas, and later with KBOP in Pleasanton, Texas, while singing locally in honky tonk bars.
Nelson graduated from Abbott High School in 1951. He joined the Air Force the same year but was discharged after nine months due to back problems. He then studied agriculture at Baylor University for one year in 1954.
In 1956, Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, to begin a musical career, recording "Lumberjack," which was written by Leon Payne. The single sold fairly well, but did not establish a career. Nelson continued to work as a radio announcer in Vancouver and sing in clubs. He sold a song called "Family Bible" for $50; the song was a hit for Claude Gray in 1960, has been covered widely and is often considered a gospel music classic.
Nelson moved to Nashville in 1960, but was unable to land a record label contract. He did, however, receive a publishing contract at Pamper Music. After Ray Price recorded Nelson's "Night Life" (reputedly the most covered country song of all time; a version of "Night Life" was even recorded by convicted killer and former cult leader Charles Manson[6]), Nelson joined Price's touring band as a bass player. While playing with Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys, many of Nelson's songs became hits for some of country and pop music's biggest stars of the time. These songs include "Funny How Time Slips Away" (Billy Walker), "Hello Walls" (Faron Young), "Pretty Paper" (Roy Orbison) and most famously, "Crazy" (Patsy Cline). Nelson signed with Liberty Records in 1961 and released several singles, including "Willingly" (sung with his wife, Shirley Collie) and "Touch Me."
He was unable to keep his momentum going, however, and Nelson's career ground to a halt. Demo recordings from his years as a songwriter for Pamper Music were later discovered and released as Crazy: The Demo Sessions (2003).
In 1965, Nelson moved to RCA Victor Records and joined the Grand Ole Opry. He followed this with a series of minor hits and then retired and moved to Austin, Texas. While in Austin, with its burgeoning "hippie" music scene (see Armadillo World Headquarters), Nelson decided to return to music. His popularity in Austin soared, as he played his own brand of country music marked by rock and roll, jazz, western swing, and folk influences. A lifelong passion for running and a new commitment to his own health also began during this period.
In the mid 1970's, Nelson purchased property near Lake Travis in Austin and built Pedernales Studio. The studio underwent state of the art renovations in the mid 1990's, and many top recording artists adorn its client list. Its amenities include a 9-hole golf course, tennis courts and an Olympic size swimming pool.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Minnie Pearl
Sarah Ophelia Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Nashville. She was the youngest of the five daughters of a prosperous lumberman in Centerville. She graduated from Ward-Belmont College, at the time Nashville's most prestigious school for young ladies, where her major was theater studies and dance was a particular interest. After graduation she taught dance for several years.
Her first professional theatrical job was with the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company, a touring theater company based in Atlanta, for which she produced and directed plays plays and musicals for local organizations in small towns throughout the southeastern United States.
As part of her work with the Sewell company, she made brief appearances at civic organizations to promote the group's shows. She developed her Minnie Pearl routine during this period. While producing an amateur musical comedy in Baileyton, Alabama, she met a mountain woman whose style and talk became the basis for "Cousin Minnie Pearl". Her first stage performance as Minnie Pearl was in 1939 in Aiken, South Carolina. The following year, executives from Nashville radio station WSM saw her perform at a bankers' convention in Centerville and gave her an opportunity to appear on the Grand Ole Opry on November 30, 1940. The success of her debut on the show began an association with the Grand Ole Opry that continued for more than 50 years.
Minnie Pearl's comedy was gentle satire of rural Southern culture, often called "hillbilly" culture. Pearl always dressed in styleless "down home" dresses and wore a hat with a price tag hanging from it, displaying the price of $1.98. Her catch phrase was "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! I'm jes' so proud to be here!" delivered in a loud holler. After she became an established star, her audiences usually shouted "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E!" back to her. Pearl told monologues involving her comical 'ne'er-do-well' relatives, notably "Uncle Nabob" and "Brother", who was simultaneously both slow-witted and wise. She usually closed her monologues with the exit line, "I love you so much it hurts!" She also sang comic novelty songs.
Pearl's comic material derived heavily from her hometown of Centerville, which in her act she called Grinder's Switch. Grinder's Switch is a community just outside of Centerville that consisted of little more than a railroad switch. Those who knew her recognized that the characters were largely based on real residents of Centerville. So much traffic resulted from fans and tourists looking for Grinder's Switch that the Hickman County Highway Department eventually changed the designation on the "Grinder's Switch" road sign to "Hickman Springs Road."
Cannon portrayed the "Minnie Pearl" character for many years on the long-running Saturday night television show Hee Haw, both on the original network and subsequent syndicated versions. Her last regular performances on national television were on Ralph Emery's Nashville Now country-music talk show on the former Nashville Network cable channel. With Emery she performed in a weekly feature, "Let Minnie Steal Your Joke", in the Minnie Pearl character would read jokes submitted by viewers, with prizes for the best joke of the week.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Elvis Presley 
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977 was an American singer, actor, and musician. A cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as "Elvis", and is also sometimes referred to as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" or "The King".
Elvis Presley owed his ancestry to diverse European ethnic strains, primarily British and German; Presley's lineage also included some Native American, i.e., Cherokee descent. His father, Vernon Elvis Presley (April 10, 1916–June 26, 1979), had several low-paying jobs, including sharecropping and working as a truck driver. His mother, Gladys Love Smith (April 25, 1912 – August 14, 1958) worked as a sewing machinist. They met in Tupelo, Mississippi, and eloped to Pontotoc County where they married on June 17, 1933.
Presley was born in a two-room shotgun house, built by his father, in East Tupelo. He was an identical twin—his brother was stillborn and given the name Jesse Garon. Growing up as an only child he "was, everyone agreed, unusually close to his mother." The family lived just above the poverty line and attended an Assembly of God church. Vernon has been described as "a malingerer, always averse to work and responsibility." His wife was "voluble, lively, full of spunk" and had a fondness for drink. In 1938, Vernon was jailed for an eight dollar check forgery. His eight-month incarceration caused Gladys and her son to lose the family home, and they moved in with relatives.
In September 1942, Presley entered first grade at Lawhorn School in Tupelo. He was considered a "well-mannered and quiet child", but sometimes classmates threw "things at him—rotten fruit and stuff—because he was different... he stuttered and he was a mama's boy."
On October 3, 1945, at age ten, he made his first public performance in a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show at the suggestion of his teacher Mrs. J.C. Grimes. Dressed as a cowboy, the young Presley had to stand on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Red Foley's "Old Shep." He came fifth, winning $5 and a free ticket to all the Fair rides.
In 1946, for his eleventh birthday, Presley received his first guitar. He wanted a bicycle or rifle for his birthday, but his parents could only afford a guitar. Over the following year, Vernon's brother, Vester, gave Elvis basic guitar lessons. In September 1948, the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, allegedly because Vernon—in addition to needing work—had to escape the law for transporting bootleg liquor. In 1949, they lived at Lauderdale Courts, a public housing development in one of Memphis' poorer sections. Presley practiced playing guitar in the laundry room and also played in a five-piece band with other tenants. One resident, another future rockabilly pioneer, Johnny Burnette, recalled, "Wherever Elvis went he'd have his guitar slung across his back... [H]e'd go in to one of the cafes or bars... Then some folks would say: 'Let's hear you sing, boy.'" Presley enrolled at L. C. Humes High School where some fellow students viewed his performing unfavorably; one recalled that he was "a sad, shy, not especially attractive boy" whose guitar playing was not likely to win any prizes. Presley was made fun of as a 'trashy' kind of boy, playing 'trashy' hillbilly music." Other children however, "would beg him" to sing, but he was apparently too shy to perform.
In September 1950, Presley occasionally worked evenings as an usher at Loew's State Theater—his first job—to boost the family income, but his mother made him quit as she feared it was affecting his school work. He worked again at Loew's in June the following year, but was fired after a fistfight over a female employee. He began to grow his sideburns and, when he could afford to, dress in the wild, flashy clothes of Lansky Brothers on Beale Street. He stood out, especially in the conservative Deep South of the 1950s, and was mocked and bullied for it. Childhood friend Red West said: "In the sea of 1600 pink-scalped kids at school, Elvis stood out like a camel in the arctic. ... [but] ... his appearance expressed a defiance which his demeanor did not match..." Despite any unpopularity or shyness, he was a contestant in his school's 1952 "Annual Minstrel Show" and won by receiving the most applause. His prize was to sing encores, including "Cold Cold Icy Fingers" and "Till I Waltz Again With You".
After graduation, Presley was still rather shy, a "kid who had spent scarcely a night away from home". His third job was driving a truck for the Crown Electric Company. He began wearing his hair longer with a ducktail;the style of truck drivers at that time.
In 1954, Presley began his career as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing "black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial—as did his uninhibited stage and television performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he has been inducted into four music halls of fame.
In the 1960s, Presley made the majority of his 31 movies—mainly poorly reviewed, but financially successful, musicals. In 1968, he returned to live music in a television special, and performed across the U.S., notably in Las Vegas. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings and recordings sales. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of music. Health problems, drug dependency and other factors led to his death at age 42.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Gretchen Wilson
Gretchen Wilson was born in Pocahontas, Illinois to a 16-year-old mother. Her father left before she was two years old, and she and her mother lived in trailer parks and relative poverty. Gretchen's mother worked as a waitress, and Wilson herself dropped out of the 9th grade at age 15 to work as a cook and bartender in rural Illinois.
Gretchen began singing in small bars around the St. Louis, Missouri, area at age 17. In 1991 Susie Osburn, a bar manager from Springfield, Missouri, went to St. Louis to find a new house band for her bar, the Townhouse. She found 18-year-old Gretchen singing Patsy Cline covers, so well so that Osburn initially thought the singing was coming from a jukebox. Recognizing Gretchen's talent, Osburn immediately convinced Gretchen and her band, Sam-A-Lama, to move to Springfield and play at the Townhouse. In her biography, Wilson says it was the offer of a lifetime. After playing the Townhouse for two years at six nights a week Gretchen moved back home to Pocahontas, Ill., before continuing on to Nashville.
After a failed marriage to former Baywolfe bandmate Larry Rolens, she moved to Nashville and began dating Mike Penner. They have a daughter, Grace Frances Penner, who was born November 9, 2001. In 1996 she moved to Nashville to sing back-up and record sample songs. In 2000, she met John Rich, a member of Big & Rich, who invited her to become his songwriting partner. In 2007, she completed the GED program.
Wilson signed with Epic Records in 2003 and recorded Here for the Party within the year. Her first single, "Redneck Woman", was released in early 2004 and reached the top of the Hot Country Songs charts and #22 on the Billboard Hot 100. This song was also the first Number One country hit by a female in two years. The success of "Redneck Woman" prompted an earlier-than-planned release for Here for the Party, and it debuted at #1 on the Billboard country chart. It also reached #2 on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Internet album sales charts. She performed as a support artist for Brooks & Dunn and Montgomery Gentry.
She released the title track to her debut album as the second single. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard country chart. Two other songs were released as singles, and both reached the top 10. Released in markets outside the U.S., the album hit #2 on the Australian country charts (behind Kasey Chambers) and the top 50 of the Australian charts. Here for the Party was certified 5× Multi-Platinum by the RIAA.