Vincent Williams encouraged him to try his luck again in the music business. While he attended a songwriter’s retreat, veteran tunesmith D. Despite his work in the medical field, Cody kept writing songs on his own time, and when he and his wife moved to Somerset, Ohio, about 50 miles east of Columbus, he was close enough to Nashville to make his way there on a regular basis. They wed in 1998, and when his wife’s work took them to Rochester, New York, Cody set music aside and went back to school, becoming a registered nurse. While he gigged regularly, the best luck he had was when he met the woman who would become his wife while playing a songwriter’s night at the Bluebird Cafe. Two weeks later, he wrote his first song and was off and running, moving to Nashville six months later to take his career to the next level. He took the job and quickly learned to play guitar as part of the band. After he finished his number, he was approached by a member of a local country group, who said they were looking for a singer and that the gig was Cody’s if he wanted it. He was working as a bouncer at a honky tonk, and on karaoke night, he stepped up to sing a song, hoping to impress one of the bartenders. Cody liked country music, but never gave much thought to becoming a performer until he was 19. Cliff Cody was born in Rockdale, Texas, and grew up in Odessa, where the family settled when he was two years old. Making his debut with the 2014 album Homegrown, Cody’s music had a potent classic rock influence to go along with the country archetypes of his melodies and lyrics, while his second long-player, 2019’s A Mess Like Me, pushed the rock guitars and organ into the background as a more traditionalist approach was audible in the performances and production. Originally from Texas, Cody has spent time in Tennessee, New York, Ohio, and Florida as he’s chased his dream of finding a bigger audience for his work. A country singer and songwriter with a big voice and a working-class sensibility, Cliff Cody embraces the classic themes of country music - hard work, hard times, broken hearts, and the occasional glass of whiskey to smooth away life’s rough edges.

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