Ricky Van Shelton

Ricky Van Shelton was an overnight country music sensation. Between 1987 and 1994, he recorded four platinum albums and had 13 chart-topping hits (many of which were covers of older hits). Van Shelton recorded three No. 1 albums back-to-back, and managed to fit both a gospel effort and a holiday album into his recording schedule. Not surprisingly, Van Shelton found it difficult to maintain such a hectic pace and relied on the bottle to give him momentum. By the time the '90s rolled around, his drinking problem almost took the singer out of the game. In 1992, he released Greatest Hits Plus while working on his next album, A Bridge I Didn't Burn. Released in 1993, the album was the first Van Shelton album not to go platinum. From there, sales continued to decline, and eventually Columbia dropped him. Unbowed, Van Shelton started his own label, RVS, and worked on a series of children's books. In 2000, he released Fried Green Tomatoes on the Audium label.