While growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, Orton began writing music at an early age. He wrote music on several different instruments before settling on piano as his tool of choice. “As a kid, I remember writing on the piano when I couldn’t even reach the pedals,” Orton recalls. After high school, Orton had an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of his father, a former baseball player in the New York Yankee organization. He entered Louisiana Tech on a baseball scholarship but gave it up after two years when the team’s curfew conflicted with his club dates. After he left Louisiana Tech, he moved back to Shreveport and became a firefighter and medic. For the next eight years Orton fronted the band EXIT, which achieved national exposure with an MTV video on the single “Kayla.” In 1991 despite working a grueling schedule at the fire department and playing late-night club dates, Orton began making the ten-hour drive to Nashville to pitch his songs. Finally in September 1994 he moved permanently to Nashville. “When I left the fire department, I quit by not taking an offered leave of absence.” “I felt if I gave myself something to fall back on, I would fall back,” Orton states. Within four months of arriving in Nashville, he signed an exclusive writer agreement with Universal Music Group Nashville (formerly MCA Music Publishing Nashville). During his tenure at Universal, Orton has achieved many major label recordings including - the Top 2 single from Emerson Drive “Fall Into Me,” Top 20 single from Chicago “Feel,” and the top 30 single from Reba McEntire “You’re Gonna Be.” Orton's song, “Angel Boy,” was featured on Tim McGraw’s double platinum album Set This Circus Down. While the song was not a single, McGraw performed “Angel Boy” several times on national TV including a performance with *NSYNC. Danny has had four songs recorded by multi-platinum Lyric Street recording artists Rascal Flatts, including their former #1 single "Stand." Orton also has several other songs on albums by Lady Antebellum, Pat Green, Billy Ray Cyrus, Lonestar, Wynonna, Randy Travis, Josh Gracin, Patty Loveless, Rushlow and Katrina Elam to name a few. *For more information on Danny Orton contact Kent Earls at UMPG Nashville.