James Travis Tritt showed an early interest in and talent for music when he sang with his Sunday school choir. By age eight, he’d taught himself to play a few songs on the guitar and a year later was performing at school. Later, he joined the church band, and by the time he was in high school, he was writing his own songs. After high school, Tritt took a job at an air conditioning company and played gigs on the side. A bandmate encouraged him to quit his day job and pursue music full-time. Tritt took the leap and dedicated himself to country music. His father was less than pleased. His mother was more supportive, however, she preferred that he play Christian music, not country.
In 1987, he proved his father wrong when he signed with the Nashville division of Warner Bros. Records and produced hit singles with “Country Club,” “Help Me Hold On,” “I’m Gonna Be Somebody,” and “Drift Off to Dream.” His second album, It’s All About to Change, went triple platinum with hit singles “Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares),” “Anymore,” “Nothing Short of Dying,” and a duet with Marty Stuart, “Whiskey Ain’t Working,” which won Grammy Awards for Tritt and Stuart for best collaboration with vocals. Over the years, he co-wrote with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington, covered songs by The Eagles (“Take it Easy”), Waylon Jennings (“Where Corn Don’t Grow”), and Hank Williams (“Move it on Over”), and performed with George Thorogood for a King of the Hill episode soundtrack.
Travis Tritt made his acting debut in the 1993 version of Rio Diablo, also starring fellow country music stars, Kenny Rogers, and Naomi Judd. In the film, Tritt plays newlywed Benjamin Taber, whose bride is kidnapped by bank robbers, and he and craggy bounty hunter Quentin Leech (Rogers) head out to find the outlaws and save his beloved.
The following year, Tritt appeared as a bull rider in the comedic Western crime film, The Cowboy Way (unrelated to INSP’s hit series The Cowboy Way: Alabama) with Woody Harrelson, Kiefer Sutherland, and Dylan McDermott. In 1996, Tritt played himself in the Steve Martin-Dan Aykroyd comedy Sgt. Bilko. The following year, he appeared with Steven Seagal and Kris Kristofferson in Fire Down Below, and again with Kristofferson, along with Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, in Outlaw Justice in 1999.
A year earlier, in 1998, he was in the star-studded movie, The Blues Brothers 2000 as a member of the Louisiana Gator Boys, which included Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley, Isaac Hayes, B.B. King, Lou Rawls, Grover Washington Jr., Steve Winwood, and Paul Shaffer, among other blues, R&B, and rock greats. Other musicians included Aretha Franklin as Mrs. Murphy, Erykah Badu as Queen Moussette, and James Brown as Rev. Cleophus James, and starred Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues and John Goodman as Mighty Mack McTeer. Indeed, Tritt was among musical royalty!
Tritt’s more recent roles include Eddie Waters in Brother’s Keeper (2013), Dr. Corey in Let There Be Light (2017) directed by and starring Kevin Sorbo, and a cameo appearance as Walt in Forever My Girl (2018).