Scotty McCreery

Did You Know?

• McCreery received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian award given by the State of North Carolina, in 2017.
• He is an avid fan of the Carolina Hurricanes, Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, and NC State Wolfpack.
• McCreery and his wife Gabi have two sons, born in October 2022 and September 2025.

Early life

McCreery was born in Garner, North Carolina, to Judy and Michael McCreery. His parents had originally planned to name him Evan but changed their minds on the way to the hospital. He is of one quarter Puerto Rican descent; his father, a manufacturing systems analyst, was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, to a military father and a Puerto Rican mother from San Juan. His mother is a real estate agent and also owns a tanning salon.

McCreery has an older sister, Ashley. Around age five or six, he received a book about Elvis Presley from his grandmother, and Elvis became his earliest musical influence. He began learning guitar at about nine or ten. He attended Timber Drive Elementary School, West Lake Middle School, and Garner Magnet High School, participating in choruses at all three.

In high school he sang tenor as a freshman and later switched to bass, also singing in his church. He played Conrad Birdie in a school production of Bye Bye Birdie and joined a vocal ensemble called Die Meistersingers. In 2009 he won a singing contest called Clayton Idol at the Clayton Harvest Festival. Later that year he was a finalist in Rip the Hallways. In 2010 he performed at a variety show called Gift 4 and at the Boots, Bands, and Bulls benefit concert.

American Idol

McCreery auditioned for the tenth season of American Idol in Milwaukee at age sixteen, having originally planned to audition in Nashville but finding a date conflict with church camp. He sang Josh Turner's Your Man and Travis Tritt's Put Some Drive in Your Country, then reprised Your Man for his first Hollywood Week performance. In the Group Round he joined four other contestants as The Guaps, performing Get Ready; during preparation one member forced another to leave, and McCreery apologized to the judges.

All five advanced. For his second Hollywood Week solo he sang I Hope You Dance but forgot the lyrics; the judges gave him another chance, and after a well-received performance of Long Black Train he was selected as one of the twenty-four finalists. He stayed mostly within the country genre, though one of his most acclaimed performances was of Carole King's You've Got a Friend. He considered an acoustic version of a hip-hop or R&B song but instead performed Montgomery Gentry's Gone.

After making the Top 3, he visited his hometown, appeared at his high school prom, threw the first pitch at a baseball game, and performed for about thirty thousand people at Lake Benson Park, where Josh Turner surprised him onstage.

Career

After winning American Idol, Scotty McCreery put out his victory single "I Love You This Big." It landed at number 32 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, marking the highest first-week position for any debut single since that chart started using BDS data in 1990. The track moved 171,404 copies in its opening week and went gold by late August 2011. He inked a deal with Mercury Nashville that included more than $250,000 in advances for his first album.

In June 2011, McCreery and fellow contestant Lauren Alaina co-presented at the CMT Music Awards and both performed at the Grand Ole Opry. He also joined the American Idols LIVE! Tour that summer. His debut album, Clear as Day, dropped on October 4, 2011, selling 197,000 copies in its first week.

That made him the first country artist to hit number one on the Billboard 200 with a debut studio album, and the youngest male to top that chart with a first release. The album reached number one on five Billboard tallies and later went platinum. McCreery also recorded a cover of Tim McGraw's "Please Remember Me," which served as the exit song for the eleventh season of American Idol.

Philanthropy

In 2011 McCreery participated in Operation Christmas Child. He has taken part in the City of Hope Celebrity Softball Game every year since 2011 to raise funds for cancer research. In November 2012 he performed a benefit concert that raised $5,000 for World Vision for Hurricane Sandy relief. World Vision sponsored his Weekend Roadtrip Tour in 2013. During a 2013 Major League Baseball ballpark tour he donated $50,000 to youth baseball programs, including MLB's Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program. He became a National Goodwill Ambassador for the 12.14 Foundation in February 2014 and performed a benefit concert that raised $60,000 for the foundation in December 2014. In December 2017 he joined other country artists on a charity single for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He appeared on Celebrity Family Feud in August 2018 and won $25,000 for St. Jude.