Riley Green was born and raised in Jacksonville, Alabama. He grew up learning traditional country, bluegrass, and Southern gospel music, heavily influenced by his grandfather, Bufford Green, who ran the Golden Saw Music Hall in Alabama. He paid tribute to Grandaddy Bufford and his other grandfather, Grandaddy Lyndon, on his song "
I Wish Grandpas Never Died."
Before starting his music career, Green was a quarterback at Jacksonville State University. He remains an avid sports fan.
Riley Green played guitar in high school, but it wasn't until college at Jacksonville State University that he started taking music seriously. He began performing four-hour sets in local bars and restaurants, often covering songs like Jamey Johnson's "
In Color," which remains a staple in his live shows.
Before his music career took off, Green competed on CMT's Redneck Island, season 4. He didn't audition for the show: their producers spotted him performing in clubs, and Green accepted their invitation so he'd gain exposure. His cast bio labeled him a "career drinker," a typical reality show exaggeration that upset Riley's mother.
His laid-back approach on the show paid off: He focused on competitions and avoided most of the cast partying. That strategy helped him win the season alongside his partner, earning a $100,000 prize and national visibility as an emerging country artist.
He signed to Big Machine Label Group in 2018 and released his debut album, Different 'Round Here, in 2019.
Green doesn't consider himself an especially good singer, but he knows how to entertain a crowd. "When I started writing songs, that was how I saw I could set myself apart from somebody who was more talented as a singer or player,"
he told Billboard.
Riley's dog, Carl the Cowboy Corgi, became a minor celebrity with an Instagram following that rivals some rising country stars:
@carlthecowboycorgi.
He keeps strong ties to his hometown of Jacksonville, Alabama, and enjoys hunting, fishing, and spending time outdoors.
Riley Green loves duck hunting and sometimes starts his concerts with a duck call, earning him the nickname "Duckman." He even pulled one out
mid interview with Jimmy Fallon, giving Fallon a crash course on how to use it.
He still wears Brut cologne thanks to a
Troy Aikman commercial he saw as a kid. Green said he'd run around the house in a Cowboys jersey spraying himself, pretending to call plays like his football hero.
Green's garage looks more like a time capsule than a parking space. He loves vintage cars, often tracking them down while on tour and hauling them back home for restoration. He especially favors Chrysler LeBarons and early Ford Broncos; rather than letting them sit idle, Green spends long hours in his barn tinkering, repairing, and breathing new life into these classics.
Riley Green has a little patch of hair just below his lower lip. Most of us would call it a soul patch, but Green has given it a much grander title: The Conquistador. On the radio show Big D & Bubba, he joked that it "adds a lot" and even helps him hide his emotions, making his face look the same whether he's happy or angry.
Riley Green earned the title "Sexiest Country Singer" in a 2025 People magazine readers' poll, placing ahead of Shaboozey, Cody Johnson and Warren Zeiders.
Riley Green's first name came about through an unusual family mix-up. Although Riley isn't technically a family name, it originated with his great-grandfather, Paul. Late in life, Paul's dementia caused him to repeatedly call Green's father "Riley" when his actual name was Kevon. The nickname stuck in the family's memory, and when Green's parents had their first son, they decided to make it official by giving him the name Riley.
Riley Green eats 14 eggs a day, splitting them between two four-egg omelets and six scrambled eggs before later adding steak to the mix. The country singer said the routine helps fuel his daily workouts and keeps him in shape.
His song "Bury Me In Dixie" generated controversy over the lyric, "I wish Robert E. Lee would come back and take a bow." Green said the mention of the Confederate general was a nod to his Southern heritage and has nothing to do with race. He
told the Chicago Tribune: "I think it's tough for people outside the state of Alabama to understand that you can be prideful in a heritage that is special to that place, and not necessarily be prejudiced to other places or other beliefs or other things you don't understand."
The song was pulled from streaming services for a few months, but Green claimed its removal was because of poor audio quality.
Green made his acting debut on the
Yellowstone spinoff
Marshals in 2026, playing an ex-Navy SEAL with PTSD in a four-episode arc. While it was difficult crafting a character who was so unlike himself, there was some crossover between fiction in reality: They both sing. Green performed his song "
My Way" in character during one of the episodes.
Green's favorite type of songs use clever wordplay, which he incorporates in his own songwriting, whether it's building unexpected stories around common sayings like "
That's Just Me," turning landmarks into relationship warning signals on "
Lookout Mountain," playing up drunken slurs on "
Think As You Drunk" or twisting everyday words into risque ones on "
Beach Happy."
But, he notes, it's important to use the technique sparingly so it doesn't distract from the storytelling. "I think songwriters can sometimes get a little fancy," he
told the Off The Record podcast. "Try to make too many plays on words, and make this twist and that. And it's not always necessary."
Green joined The Voice as a coach in 2026. He wasn't the first country singer to sign onto the reality singing competition, but he was the first to get a special holster outfitted to his spinning red chair so he could sheath his signature cowboy hat.
Green is against the use of Artificial Intelligence in songwriting because a machine can never convey the emotions of a flesh-and-blood songwriter with real-life experience. Aside from that, it's just lazy.
"That's a really lazy way to try to create something. It feels to me a little bit like when I was in school, I used to do SparkNotes because I didn't want to read the book I was supposed to read. And that was lazy," he told Off The Record. "And this is 10 times over that."
