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Ted Nugent music biography continued...

play the guitar as a youngster and formed his first band, The Lourdes, at age 14. Upon his high school graduation, in 1967, Nugent began recruiting members for a new group called The Amboy Dukes. The band signed with Mainstream Records and released their self-titled debut album. The following year, they achieved national recognition with the single, "Journey to the Center of the Mind," which reached No. 8 on the pop charts. In the early 1970s, the Amboy Dukes continued to record while averaging more than 300 concert dates per year. It was during this time that Nugent's legendary concert performances, complete with props, outrageous wardrobe, pyrotechnics, and live animals, began to develop. Nugent's popularity soon eclipsed that of his bandmates and The Amboy Dukes were soon renamed Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes. In 1975, Nugent dropped out of the band to pursue a solo career. Now recording with the Epic Records label, he released his first solo album, Ted Nugent, featuring the hit singles "Strangle Hold" and "Hey Baby." In 1977, Nugent followed with an even more successful album—Cat Scratch Fever—which eventually sold more than three million copies. The LP included the now-classic rock anthems "Cat Scratch Fever," "Workin' Hard, Playin' Hard," and "Out of Control." Nugent used a live album to catapult his career to the next level of stardom -- 1978's classic Double Live Gonzo!—which went multiplatinum and made Nugent a hard rock God.



In the early 1980s, Nugent's popularity began to diminish. He retreated from the spotlight for a few years before releasing two relatively successful albums, Penetrator (1984) and Little Miss Dangerous (1986). An outspoken supporter of gun ownership rights and conservative politics, Nugent fell more out of favor in the 90s, but he came back in 2000, opening 79 sold-out concerts on the KISS Farewell Tour. More recently, he has been seen on several reality television shows on hunting and the outdoors, and in 2009 played guitar at The Alamo for a Tax Day Tea Party hosted by Glenn Beck and the Fox Cable News Network. In politics and music, he continues to be an individualist.