Terry McBride has enjoyed three successful careers in country music -- as a backing musician, as a songwriter, and as a headline performer. McBride was born on September 16, 1958 in Lampasas, Texas, a rural area not far from Austin. His father, Dale McBride, was a singer and songwriter who enjoyed modest success as a country artist in the '70s, scoring his biggest hit in 1976 with the tune "Ordinary Man." When Terry was nine years old, his dad gave him his first guitar, and after he graduated high school, Terry spent several years on the road touring with Dale's band. In the early '80s, Terry relocated to Austin, where he fared well as a musician, playing bass with Delbert McClinton's road band for two years, as well as backing Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Lee Roy Parnell, and Rosie Flores, among others.

In 1989, McBride moved to Nashville in hopes of breaking into songwriting. Tony Brown, an executive at the Nashville branch of MCA Records, was impressed with McBride's vocals as well as his songwriting, and paired him up with guitarist Ray Herndon and drummer Billy Thomas to form the band McBride the Ride. The trio's debut album, Burnin' Up the Road, appeared in 1990, and in 1991 a track from the LP, "Can I Count on You," became their first song to make the Country Singles chart, peaking at number 15. McBride the Ride would record three more albums and land seven singles in the Country Top 40 (including four that reached the Top Five) before they broke up in 1995.

While McBride intended to launch a solo career, he was sidelined by new success as a songwriter. A tune he co-wrote, "I Am That Man," became a major hit for Brooks Dunn in 1996, and it became the first of more than 25 songs McBride would write for the duo. Over the next 20 years, McBride's songs were cut by a who's who of country stars, including Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Kenny Rogers, Hank Williams, Jr., John Anderson, and Gretchen Wilson. In 2000, McBride the Ride staged a reunion tour, and released a fifth album, Amarillo Sky, in 2002, though by the end of that year they had once again parted ways. Encouraged by his old friend Delbert McClinton, in 2017 McBride stepped out as a solo artist, releasing a six-song EP titled Hotels Highways via MV2 Entertainment. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi