Ryano

Ryan “Ryano” Reynolds
Like a freight train running full steam a head out of the depths of the Deep South comes the hurling Ryano, his guitar his horn—Shouting "By the people: for the people".
Ryan “Ryano” Reynolds finds his roots deep in the heart of Texas where his mother was a runner up in the Miss Texas Pageant and his father found himself going to the California Angels. On the day he was born, his father was on the mound pitching for the California Angels while his mother was in the hospital giving birth. He was an early bird about 2 months already weighing 7.9 lbs. Ryan loves to recall his Daddy’s tale of the Angel’s scoreboard flashing his weight and measurements in bright lights right in the middle of his Angel’s game. He was named after his father’s friend, Nolan Ryan, and his family’s roots are as far back from the Boston Tea Party through the Alamo right on up to the Civil War.
As a little boy, Ryano recalls his first early memory of music when he talks about how proud he was of his mamma in her beautiful choir robe. He would watch in wonder from the pews of the old church his family attended as she walked in front of the congregation and where he remembers what ever she sang would "rock the halls of Heaven”. She was his inspiration then and the reason he came back to music today. Then, at 10 years old, he heard Lacey J. Dalton sing “16th Avenue”; he was hooked. Little did he know then that the song was about Nashville’s Music Row & one day he would be one of those people on 16th ave. His destiny was set.
Growing up blue collar on the family ranch, Ryano’s grandfather was both a rancher and a fire chief. Living was hard but it made a person appreciate life. Growing up, he did a little boxing and had a walk on offer to play college football for the University of Nebraska as a defensive end. His other passion was “Bull Doggin” (rodeo steer wrestling) in high school. But looking back on his childhood, the seed of music has always been planted throughout his life—it’s something he felt he was just simply meant to do.
The Opry circuit in East Texas knew well of Ryan Reynolds when he was 17 and by the age of 19, he had a full-fledged traveling band that played all of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and parts of Oklahoma. It wasn’t long until he had done all he could do there that he starting hearing the call of Nashville. In 1993, he moved not far from Music Row and took a job as a " rod buster" on a bridge crew. Ryano spent about a year getting settled around Nashville then slowly started networking and co-writing on the country music scene.

January of 1995 was Ryano’s bench mark of one year to get things started in his music career and 6 months later he landed his first publishing deal with Don Shlitz who had such hits a “The Gambler”, “Forever & Ever Amen” and “River and the Highway”. The two struck up an appreciation for each other and started to co write together. One year later he had his first cut by Rich McCready “ Most Likely to Succeed" on Magnatone Records. Since that time, he has co-written with such greats as Harlan Howard; Melba Montgomery; Billy Yates; Charlie Daniels; Vern Gosden; LeeAnne Womack; Bigg Kenny (of Bigg & Rich); Tim Mensy; Jamie Ohara; Lisa Brokop; Kerry Kurt Phillips; Ira Dean (of Trick Pony) Brian Dean Maher; Aimee Mayo; Bob Regan; Bill Luther; Josh Kear; Dean Sams (of Lone Star) and the list goes on.

Ryano received his first record deal in 1996 to which he made an album he was truly proud of on Imprint Records. Imprint released the single “Do I ever Cross Your Mind” during the Monday Night feature of Indie Artist releases hoping to get added on to the play list. It came to no surprise to anyone at Imprint that the single (out of thousands of hopefuls) came in third right behind Alan Jackson and John Anderson across the nation. The video of the release began its 8 week run as the "Hotshot" video for 8 weeks on CMT, however, 6 days after the single was released and in spite of what Ryano had achieved, the label folded and closed its doors. The single was pulled from the stations, though many continued to play it anyway. The video continued to play on CMT but without a record deal, the ratings played out. Ryano went from there to Rising Tide but before he could go all the way there, the label was reabsorbed by MCA and shelved all the new projects. So Ryano did what he does best. He started playing live!

Ryano scheduled two showcases in Nashville and he remembers looking out in the audience to see about 8 record label presidents all sitting in the same room. In the music business, you NEVER see that many presidents sitting in a room altogether unless it’s an award show. Ryano says he’s never seen a sight like that before nor has he since. After the showcase, Capitol Records stepped up to the plate and the process of getting a new deal was underway. But as tragedy would have it, it was during the time that Garth Brooks had his infamous “