Lyric Theatre In Downtown Stuart

He’s just in his mid 20s, but country music singer Jake Owen has an old soul. The Vero Beach native, whose RCA Records hits include “Yee Haw” and “Startin’ With Me,” has a deep, rich baritone voice that brings the legends — Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard — immediately come to mind. Yet his live shows are fast-paced, celebratory affairs, packed with the youthful energy and enthusiasm of a Kenny Chesney or Brad Paisley concert (Jake has toured extensively with both of them, by the way, as well as superstars Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn). Every day, he has to pinch himself, for this Cinderella tale was something he’d never, ever dreamed of while perusing his history textbook at Vero Beach High School. “Every time I tell this story I remind myself how lucky I am that this all happened,” Jake says. “But at the same time, I can say look, things in life happen for a reason. “I wanted to be a professional golfer — that’s all I had in mind, there was nothing else that I wanted to be. I was totally bound and determined that’s what I was going to do.” But a dislocated shoulder meant he couldn’t pursue his golf scholarship at Florida State University, so Jake — his real name is Josh (that’s what all his Vero friends still call him) — started focusing on his singing, songwriting and guitar playing. “One door in life sometimes will shut, and as long as you keep on plugging away and keep your head up, another one’s going to open sooner or later,” he says. “You’ve just got to know where to go with it, and trust your instincts.” His instincts told him to go to Nashville, land a day job and perfect his music at night, at home. By himself. And that’s what he did. “I told myself ‘If I’m gonna do this, I gotta bust my butt and go at it 185 percent.’ “I didn’t want to be seen out partying and drinking. I laid low and kept to myself and wrote songs, and wrote songs, to the point where I figured, ‘I’d like to be someone who comes out of nowhere with a bunch of great songs, and can present myself in a way that’s marketable, rather than being the guy that was beating around town, the guy that people see in the bars every night, kinda overexposed.’” RCA talent scouts signed him after a mega-successful showcase, and the album “Startin’ With Me” — consisting entirely of songs he wrote or co-wrote with others — appeared in the fall of 2006. Jake’s first single, the ebullient “Yee Haw,” made the Top Twenty. The album’s title song reached Number 10. Shortly afterwards, he made his debut on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. “It was such an amazing experience to be standing in that circle where Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings had played, and all these guys that have just been icons in country music,” says Jake. “I totally understand that everything that’ happened for me has happened so fast, and so unlikely, and so against what everyone said was going to happen.”