By all Nash Vegas accounts, North Carolina singer/songwriter Jimmy Wayne comes from the wrong side of the tracks. Born in 1972, he was abandoned by his father at a young age and raised by a troubled mother and in a series of foster homes when she was in prison. On his 15th birthday he saw his stepfather shoot his stepsister three times, paralyzing her, and survived a murder attempt by the same man. He entered, and then ran from, a county home and became a homeless youth who did what was needed to survive on the street. His encounter with a neighborhood couple led them to give him a job and a place to live, and created the pillars of his final foster family. With Beatrice and Russell Costner, Wayne was able for the first time to indulge his love of music, which included Hall & Oates, Alan Jackson, Lionel Richie, Ronnie Milsap, Iron Maiden, Queensr˙che, and Judas Priest. He formed his first band, called Fantasyche, and began taking music seriously. When Beatrice died, Wayne finished high school and became a prison guard at the Gaston Correctional Facility. An inmate who made an anti-drug presentation using a guitar during a school assembly had influenced him greatly. Wayne visited the inmate for songwriting advice and went to work at the prison while studying criminal justice at a local community college. After finishing his associate's degree, he left North Carolina for Nashville.