Sawyer Brown is Performing at DeJoria Center on High Star Ranch, November 11, 2023!
Sawyer Brown is an American country music band founded in 1981 in Apopka, Florida, by five members of country pop singer Don King's road band: Bobby Randall (guitar), Jim Scholten (bass guitar), Joe Smyth (drums), Gregg "Hobie" Hubbard (keyboards), and Mark Miller (lead vocals). After King retired in 1981, the five members decided to form a band, first choosing the name Savanna before switching to Sawyer Brown, taken from the name of a road near where they practiced.
Sawyer Brown first gained national attention in 1983 when they participated on Star Search, a former television talent show on which they won the grand prize of $100,000. They received many offers in Los Angeles, including a Monkees-like television show, but opted to return to Nashville. They quickly earned a recording contract with Capitol Records (in association with Curb Records). Their first album, also titled Sawyer Brown, was issued in 1985. It included their first Number One single on the Billboard country music charts, titled "Step That Step". The band continued to chart regularly throughout the 1980s, although many of their late-1980s singles failed to enter Top 40.
The band signed with Capitol Records and scored a Top 20 hit with their first single, "Leona," in 1984. That success was quickly followed by their first #1 hit, "Step That Step".
In 1991, after the release of their album Buick, guitarist Bobby Randall left the group to remain close to his family and host a short-lived TV talent show, You Can Be A Star. Duncan Cameron, formerly of The Amazing Rhythm Aces, was chosen as his replacement just as Sawyer Brown was about to become country music's "it" band. The band then switched labels, moving to Curb Records and releasing the albums The Dirt Road, Cafe On The Corner, and Outskirts Of Town, which saw hit after hit for the band in the early to mid-'90s.
