Dann Huff
Dann Huff is a Nashville guitarist and record producer who moved from Christian rock and Los Angeles session work, by way of the hard-rock band Giant, to a long career producing country records. The Country Music Association has named him Musician of the Year three times, in 2001, 2004 and 2016.
Daniel Lee Huff was born in Nashville on 15 November 1960, the son of the arranger and conductor Ronn Huff. He was booking recording sessions by the age of sixteen. With his brother David on drums he was part of the original lineup of the Christian rock band White Heart, formed in 1982, playing lead guitar and producing its first two albums with Billy Smiley before leaving in 1984 to concentrate on studio work.
That work took him to Los Angeles, where he played guitar for artists from Madonna and Michael Jackson to Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand; his credits include Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” He also played electric guitar on Waylon Jennings’s MCA album Full Circle (1988). In 1987 he and the keyboardist Alan Pasqua founded Giant, with David Huff on drums and Mike Brignardello on bass; Dann sang lead and played guitar. The band made Last of the Runaways (1989), whose ballad “I’ll See You in My Dreams” became a hit, and Time to Burn (1992) before breaking up.
Huff then returned to Nashville and to sessions, at first largely for the producer James Stroud, who used him on records by Tim McGraw, Clay Walker and Tracy Lawrence. Encouraged by the producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, he moved into production himself. After early projects that included a Megadeth album, he co-produced Faith Hill’s Cry (2002) and went on to work with Lonestar, Rascal Flatts, Hunter Hayes, the Band Perry and Cassadee Pope, and on six consecutive albums with Keith Urban.
His CMA Musician of the Year awards came in 2001, 2004 and 2016; at the 2016 ceremony he also won Single of the Year as producer of Thomas Rhett’s “Die a Happy Man.” By 2018 he had been nominated thirty-one times, with two Single of the Year wins, and that year he was nominated for both Musician and Single of the Year (Midland’s “Drinkin’ Problem”) and for two Album of the Year entries, Keith Urban’s Graffiti U and Thomas Rhett’s Life Changes. In May 2025 he released his first solo album, When Words Aren’t Enough.
