On this day (November 15) in 1960, Dann Lee Huff was born in Nashville, Tennessee. His career in music has swung a wide arc — from fronting a hard-rock band in the 1980s to racking up session guitar credits on works by Whitesnake, Whitney Houston, and Kenny Rogers. During the 1990s, he ventured into producing, working on groundbreaking albums like Shania Twain’s multi-Platinum The Woman in Me and Faith Hill’s Grammy-nominated Faith.
Today, we’re shining a spotlight on the many musical contributions of Dann Huff in honor of his 66th birthday.
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Dann Huff Had Rock-Star Dreams
Dann Huff came by his musical talent honestly. His father, Ronn Huff, was an arranger, composer and conductor who wrote orchestrations for film and television. He was also the pops conductor for the Nashville Symphony.
By 16, Dann was playing on demos in Nashville. In his early 20s, he played guitar and sang backup for the contemporary Christian and pop-rock outfit White Heart, in which his brother David played drums.
Huff left the band after two albums to pursue his studio musician dreams. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he booked sessions with Madonna, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, and more.
In 1987, he founded the hard rock band Giant, which also included David on drums. With Giant, the Huff brothers scored a Top 40 hit in 1990 with the power ballad “I’ll See You in My Dreams”, which reached No. 20 on the Hot 100.
Giant disbanded after just two albums, unable to tread water in the grunge craze overtaking the charts in the early 1990s.
“Giant came and went quickly…. Pearl Jam came along, and that was it! We moved back to Nashville,” Huff reflects in a 2014 Rolling Stone Country profile. “I was a horrible frontman. I hadn’t been born to be that. So I just jumped back into what I knew, which was playing sessions. In the changing face of country music, it was perfect.”
Taking Over Nashville
Dann Huff produced two albums for heavy metal giants Megadeth, including 1997’s Cryptic Writings and 1999’s Risk.
He also worked on several projects with country superstar Faith Hill, including her polarizing 2002 album Cry.
Navigating deftly between country and pop, Huff began a long-standing professional partnership with Keith Urban in 2002. In 2012, he produced three songs on Taylor Swift’s definitive breakup album Red: the title track, “Starlight”, and “Begin Again”.
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“I like working with people who really make you feel as if you’re living a lyric,” he said. “It’s not just poetry; it’s not just music. The combination takes you to another place.”
Featured image by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images
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