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Philip Sweet remembers well making his singing debut as a child. "I lived in a farmhouse surrounded by soybean fields and cotton fields, and it had an old shed and barn," explains Arkansas-born Sweet, who these days does his singing as one-quarter of the platinum-selling country band Little Big Town. "I got this old broken crankshaft that looked like a microphone. Then I climbed up on top of the shed and sang to the field. In my mind, that field was a huge crowd."
Young Sweet went on to take up guitar and piano in the coming years. Music was a reliable companion to him through constant shifts in scenery-from Arkansas to Texas, then to Missouri and back to Arkansas by fifth grade-and the breakup of his parents' marriage. "Through all of the changes, music was my escape," he says. "I felt so much emotional energy in music."
By 15, Sweet was singing in his mother's country music variety show, and after high school he attended Arkansas State on a vocal scholarship. In 1997, he set out for Nashville, where one of his demos made its way to three other talented singer-songwriters who were looking to form a band.
When Sweet first joined voices with Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman and Jimi Westbrook, there was no doubt that his voice was the element they'd been missing. "We started singing together in Kimberly's living room, and we loved how our voices blended," Sweet remembers. "I think we were meant to be together. You could just feel it." Sweet brought to the group not just his inviting baritone, but an innate optimism that helped Little Big Town power through a series of difficult personal and professional challenges before exploding nationally in 2005. "Phillip is the positive thinker, the dreamer," Fairchild says.
Now Sweet's dreams have come true in ways he couldn't have imagined. He has a hit band with real fans to sing to, and in 2007, he became a father when wife Rebecca gave birth to daughter Penelopi Jane Sweet.
"My goals were always health, abundance, love and happiness in my life," he says. "The essence of those things are here. It just goes to show you can do what you love and have your family with you at the same time, which is the greatest. Now my goal is just to be in the moment and appreciate it."
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