Most people don’t think of big-star entertainers like Brooks & Dunn as shy people, but Ronnie Dunn was incredibly shy in his younger years, so much that you might never have expected to see him on a stage. “I was almost paralyzed with shyness and couldn’t really finish a sentence,” he recalls. Ronnie’s certainly come a long way from those days, but music was always his escape, and he says it still is today. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Be sure to tune-in a week from today — October 30th — for the premiere of CMT’s Invitation Only: Brooks & Dunn. The special will feature performances and a Q&A with an intimate audience in Nashville. Catch it at 10pm, ET, and be watching for additional weekend airings!
• One of the songs on Invitation Only will be the duo’s latest chart-climber, “Honky Tonk Stomp,” from their music-packed double-disc collection, #1s … and then some.

  Ronnie Dunn has come a long way from his childhood shyness, but even then, music was always his escape. (:20)
“I was almost paralyzed with shyness and couldn’t really finish a sentence; I was just so self-conscious. People would come to visit my parents, and I would leave; I would go to the back and shut the door and go to my room. I’d turn the record player on and listen to music. And that’s…that was always…it was always my escape, and it is today.”