Eddie DeGarmo

I grew up In Memphis Tennessee on the banks of the Mississippi river as the youngest of four boys in our family. Both of my parents were independent business people each starting and owning their respective businesses. This proved invaluable to me learning many different skills while growing up. I worked alongside them doing various jobs as long as I can remember.

My father was a home builder and contractor. He also sold them. Many times I would be present on one of his job sites learning everything from carpentry, electrical, plumbing, drywall, concrete etc. – basically everything that goes into building a house as well as the business of marketing them and selling them when they were completed.

My mother owned two cosmetology schools and six hair salons. In high school, it seemed I was always repairing something there from the beauty stations to the Coke machine! I also cleaned them all every Sunday afternoon/evening as my weekend job.

In the early years as I forged my life’s career in music, I started a contractor business to help support our young family. We did everything from painting to small remodeling jobs.  I also worked as a maintenance man for various apartment complexes. This job engaged me to be a fix-it man for most anything.

As my music business flourished, we owned our own production elements for our concerts from sound, lighting, instruments as well as the vehicles to support our touring, I was the guy always in charge of maintaining it all.

After retiring from my artist career and touring, I co-founded a record label and music publishing business and continued to work on the business side of music for 25 years.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Trevecca Nazarene University.

I currently live in Franklin Tn with my lovely wife of 50 years. We have two wonderful daughters, two son-in -laws and five grandchildren. Two of our grands are married now!

The following is an overview of my career:

Throughout his over fifty years in music, Eddie DeGarmo has had a storied career with success as an artist, songwriter, producer and businessman. He was one of the leading pioneers of contemporary Christian music as part of rock duo DeGarmo & Key, which was recently inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. During his 17 years with D&K and a successful solo endeavor, DeGarmo sold millions of albums and garnered 9 Grammy nominations and dozens of Dove Award nominations. He went on to co-found ForeFront Records, where he developed multi-platinum selling and Grammy winning artists such as dc Talk, Stacie Orrico, Audio Adrenaline, Geoff Moore and theDistance and Rebecca St. James. He was then recruited to lead the largest faith based music publisher Capitol CMG Publishing. Under his supervision that company went on to change the face of “Modern Worship” music.