Brooks and Dunn Almost Parted Ways 10 Years Too Early

Brooks and Dunn may have officially stopped making new music in 2010, but the legendary country duo nearly parted ways long before that. According to Kix Brooks, he and partner Ronnie Dunn were about to call it quits back in 1999 until a well-known music exec kept them together.

Before amicably splitting up in 2010, Brooks and Dunn released some of their best music in the 2000s, including three platinum-selling No. 1 albums and more than 20 singles, all of which charted in the Top 20. Hard to believe that none of this would have been possible if former Sony Music chairman Joe Galante hadn't stepped in and encouraged the boys to keep making music.

"We had a record called Tight Rope [in 1999] that hadn’t done really well, and we were just getting kind of threadbare. We weren’t really writing together anymore, and we were just kind of done," Brooks said at a recent event honoring Galante, according to Country Weekly. "Joe sat down with us and just convinced us we still had some music to make. He said, ‘If I’m wrong, then you can shut it down. But I don’t think I am.' We had so much respect for him and his legend. Neither one of us knew him, but we said, ‘OK. This guy is for real and he’s a big-time guy.'"

Not only did Galante convince Brooks and Dunn to stay together, he also found them the song that reintroduced the duo to success when he asked them to record "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You." The song shot to No. 1 on the country charts, was declared the best country song for all of 2001 and even crossed over to pop radio, charting at No. 25 Billboard Hot 100. The track was part of the duo's 2001 album Steers and Stripes, which also landed at the No. 1 spot.

"It was another 10 years before we said, ‘We really are done this time,’ but we made a lot of music, [including] Red Dirt Road and that whole Steers and Stripes album, and wrote a lot more songs," shares Brooks. "Who knows if all those things, from 'Only in America’ [another No. 1 release from Steers and Stripes] to ‘Believe,’ [their 2005 hit] ever would have happened?"

And even though Brooks and Dunn did finally part ways a few years ago, it looks like the duo still has more than a few great performances left in them. While an official reunion tour isn't in the cards, Brooks and Dunn will team up for a series of concerts at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace with none other than Reba McEntire.