The athletes, artists and celebrities invited to join Jake on stage share a mix of music genres - country, rock, indie rock, jazz, blues, bluegrass, classical, Latin, and heavy metal.
Ben Broussard was a .263 hitter with 87 home runs during a seven-year Major League career from 2002-08, including slugging 69 home runs during a five-year span for the Indians. Broussard spent his time away from the field playing guitar and writing songs, eventually releasing his first album, Ben Broussard, in 2005. He released his second album, Renovated, in 2009 after his baseball career concluded. Broussard’s songs have been featured on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” CBS’ “Cold Case,” FOX’s “Bones” and MTV’s “The Real World.”
Ed Montague was a MLB umpire for 35 years until announcing his retirement prior to the 2010 season. Montague’s 4,369 games served as an umpired are the eighth-most in the history of the game and he is only one of three umpires to serve as a crew chief in the World Series on four occasions (1997, 2000, 2004, 2007).
A former combat veteran with the elite 75th Ranger Regiment special operations unit, Keni Thomas makes time for military and veteran causes and is a national spokesperson for the Hero Fund and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. His current album, Gunslinger, was received with critical acclaim. The project yielded hit singles, including “Shreveport to LA,” which dominated GAC’s Top Country Video chart for 16 weeks, and the title track, “Gunslinger,” which landed in the Top 10 on CMT.
SPECIAL GUEST S Sgt. Christopher Hill (ret). was born and raised in Birmingham Alabama where and joined the Marine Corps at the age of 19. He served as a Special Forces Marine for 20 years providing Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Intelligences for over 78 separate real world and combat operations.
He was injured during his fourth tour during a rocket attack in Fallujah, Iraq serving with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Intelligence Company in 2005. He sustained a traumatic brain injury, nerve damage, spinal cord injury and severe PTSD. He was hospitalized for over a year recovering from his injuries and dawned a uniform again in 2007. He served the remainder of his Marine Corps career at 4Th Reconnaissance, Smyrna, Georgia and the Wounded Warrior Center, Camp Pendleton, California.
