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Teddy Wayne Gentry was born in Fort Payne, Alabama on January 22,1952 and lived in the country on Lookout Mountain with his PawPaw in a wooden frame house. Teddy is 6'2" tall and weighs about 170 lbs. He has brown hair and green eyes. Teddy has been married for thirty-three years and has two children, one girl and one boy and four grandchildren, three girls and a boy.
After graduating from High School and before and during his music career, he worked in many other jobs. "I ran a theatre, I laid carpet, I bagged groceries and I worked on a farm."
Teddy enjoys spending time with his family and directing operations at his Bent Tree Farms cattle business when he’s not playing bass for country super group Alabama. After receiving his first check from RCA records, in 1980, for $61,000, he asked his wife Linda what we should do with the money. She answered, "what means the most to you?" "Why don't you buy your grandfathers farm--where you were raised, because I know you love the old place."
Well, that's exactly what he did. His grandfather agreed to sell the 60-acre cotton farm for $1000 an acre. He had lived on the farm since the late 20s. “When I was born in 1952, my mother and I went to live with "Papa", as I called him,” Teddy recalls.
“By 1980, my grandfather was not able to farm the land any more. He said he'd love for me to have it. As 1981 rolled around, our interest in the cattle business grew. That year we purchased our great grandfather Owen's farm, which joined my grandfather's place. That additional 80 acres now grew the farm to 140 acres. At the time we were called Lazy G Ranch.”
“My son Josh was in the second or third grade. One night we were going over rhymes. We had rhymed several words, and suddenly I said our last name-Gentry. To which he replied, Bent Tree. I was telling one of the boys working on the farm the next day about my son's saying Bent Tree. He replied, "You know what a bent tree is?" I said, "no".
He said, "In Oklahoma, where I live, there were Bent Trees that the Indians would bend over when the trees were small and tie them to the ground, to point the direction the tribe was moving at the time."
“I contacted a lady at the Alabama Historical Society who told me we had bent trees along the top of Lookout Mountain and Little River Canyon where our farm is. When we found out this information, we decided to change the name of the farm to Bent Tree Farms.”
When it comes to music Teddy plays by ear and has written hundreds of songs; he has co-written many of the Alabama hits -- "How Do I Fall In Love", "Why Lady Why", "My Home's In Alabama", "Fallin' Again", "Give Me One More Shot", "Sad Lookin' Moon", to name a few. He's also the founder and president of Creative Cafe.
Teddy was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in November 2005 along with his partners in Alabama. As part of his acceptance speech Teddy remarked, “Being put into the Country Music Hall of Fame is the greatest achievement of Alabama's career. I am moved and honored to be in the elite company of my heroes.”
A good memory that Teddy has of his career is the night ACMA presented them with "The Entertainer Of The Year Award." That was a dream come true for him. Teddy enjoys reading fan mail, especially "from the young fans" and wants all their fans to "Turn other people on to our music." When asked, "Do you have any special comments for your fans?" "I would like to extend many thanks for your support over the years and I hope that we can always put out a piece of product that will make the fans proud of us.
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