If you're looking for an artist with the bona fide credentials to sing a country song, look no further. Rodney Atkins' latest album, If You're Going Through Hell, captures every aspect of his life, from his humble, multiple-adoption beginning, to his rural east Tennessee upbringing, to his present-day, stick to your roots convictions.

And judging by his breakout success in 2006—If You're Going Through Hell, recently certified gold, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard country albums chart; the title track spent four weeks atop the Billboard country singles chart, earning Billboard Most Played Song of 2006 and SESAC Song of the Year honors. The follow-up single, "Watching You," written by Rodney about his son, Elijah, spent 2 weeks at #1 on both the Billboard and Mediabase charts —life is pretty good.

"Every song I sing is about the world as I know it," Rodney says. "Every word is real. I'm not going to sing it if it isn't."

As an infant, Rodney was placed at the Holston Methodist Home for Children in Greenville, Tenn. Two different couples took him home, only to return him days later saying he was too sick for them to handle. But the third couple, the Atkins family, took him as their own, and though his condition initially worsened, they refused to give him up. "It never crossed their minds to take me back," Rodney explains. For better or worse, "I was theirs."

Though times were tough, his parents made sure his start in life was easier than theirs had been. Rodney grew up in Cumberland Gap, Tenn., playing baseball, doing chores and hanging out with his friends. It wasn't until high school that a guitar found its way into his hands. Music soon became a rival for baseball, and Rodney began playing out at county fairs, festivals and shopping malls.

Upon graduation, Rodney attended Walter State Community College and later enrolled as a psychology major at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville. In his downtime, he started traveling west to Nashville, playing more gigs and writing songs. Before long, word spread around Nashville about a singer whose vocal sound was full-range, powerful and emotive. Mike Curb and Curb Records signed him up and have stood behind him ever since.

His well-received and critically acclaimed debut album, Honesty, produced a top 5 hit of the same name in 2003. But Rodney wanted to try something a little different for his sophomore effort.

First off, he didn't come into Nashville to record it. As if to tighten the ties that bind his music to his world, he put together a simple studio at home, about 80 miles outside of Nashville, down a blacktop road that leads to a "Dead End" sign, then turns into a narrow tar-and-chip path that winds through the woods to the house he and wife Tammy Jo found a few years ago. They settled there because it reminds them of where Rodney grew up in East Tennessee.

"We have a 5-year-old son and we want to raise him like we were raised"—not in a big city, Rodney says. "For us, right or wrong, it makes more sense to be out on a ridge, where you can see wild turkey and deer in the front yard every morning and you go to sleep at night with the 'redneck lullaby,' as my wife calls it—tree frogs and crickets. I wouldn't trade that for anything."

Rodney wrote six of the 10 tracks and laid down his vocals in between the responsibilities of everyday life and spending time with his family. "This could be the most inexpensive record Curb has ever done," he says, "because there was no studio clock ticking away. I'd just go in whenever I felt like singing, leave for a while to take my son down to fish at the river, and maybe finish after putting him to bed at night. I could look out a window toward our backyard and see the woods. Sometimes I'd see a herd of deer pass while I was working. It just felt right."

Five songs on the album carry a southern theme. Leading off is the fiddle-filled, up-tempo "These are My People". According to Rodney, "The best songs are the ones you can see yourself in even if you didn't write them," and this one, he says, mirrors his life growing up in Cumberland Gap. "Cleaning This Gun" is another real-to-life tune about that nervous time when a boy first meets his girlfriend's father. "I lived this song," Rodney says. "One of the first times I went courting in high school I was met by a girl's daddy standing beside the driveway with a .357."

Two songs written by Rodney, "About the South", a tribute to Rodney's Southern heritage, and "In the Middle," a heartfelt portrayal about his rural way of life, along with "Man on a Tractor," an "amazing classic country song," Rodney says, round out the group.

Every word Rodney sings rings true because he understands country music. "I've heard people say that good music is supposed to make you laugh or cry – I don't know if that's true, but I think that good music is music that is not supposed to waste your time."