Drummer / percussionist Gene Acree was born into a legacy of musical talent as Gene’s father Andy Acree has been in the country music business his whole life. Gene’s Father has been a musician, band leader, President of a Record Label and recording studio. Gene’s Dad was inducted into the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973 with the great Patsy Montana. Gene was honored along with his father’s band The COUNTRY SQUIRES when they were inducted into the Illinois Country Music Hall Of Fame and Museum in October of 1998 along with his father. Gene learned from the best when at 8 years old he started taking lessons from his dad’s drummer Russ Schroeder who during his career was on the Grand Ole Opry while working for Kitty Wells and Sonny Wright and worked as the Opry staff drummer for several years. At age 12 Gene and Alan Jackson’s guitarist Tom Rutledge became members of Andy Acree’s Country Squires Band where they both traveled with the Squires working the road with some of Country Music’s finest . Names such as Conway Twitty, Nat Stuckey, Willy Nelson, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams Jr, Loretta Lynn, Kitty Wells, Billy Grammer, Carl and Pearl Butler and many of the stars of the Grand Ole Opry until they were out of school. In high school and in college Gene played music with various groups around Central Illinois and in 1988 moved to Florida where he joined up with Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts in the making of Seven Turns  in preparation for the 20^th year come back tour of the Allman Bros Band . Gene will tell you today he would not take anything away from the early years as they are what have made him what he is today. Gene has been mainly a free lance drummer most of his life. Gene Recently hit a milestone that was covered in an Illinois Times article by Tom Irwin when Gene played his 5,000^th performance on November 11, 2006 at the Hoogland Center for the arts with Bill Cobb and the Memory of Elvis Show.

Gene plays several variations of drum sets including LUDWIG, PEARL and PREMIER and plays Zildjian and Paiste cymbals exclusively.