Jack Ingram

Country singer Jack Ingram has stick-to-itiveness.

After all, the Academy of Country Music "Best New Male Vocalist" has been going from dance hall to dance hall -- and everywhere else in between -- to play music since the early 1990s when he first played at Adair's Saloon in Dallas while studying psychology at Southern Methodist University.

"There's all kinds of clichés that ring true for us. Like I knew who I wanted to be and we weren't there yet," Ingram said in a recent telephone interview. "You gotta keep knocking on doors and knocking on doors. We were looking for a new record deal, you get told 'No' so many times. But you have got to remember you only have to have one person tell you 'Yes,' one person to believe in you."

Ingram and his Beat-Up Ford Band and Josh Abbott will officially break in the Lucky Mule Saloon, 1850 S. Clack St. (the former Rockin' Rodeo) with a show tonight.

The singer bounced around from Warner Bros. to Sony to Big Machine before hitting it big in 2006 with the live album "Live Wherever You Are."

The single "Wherever You Are" went to No. 1 on the Billboard country music chart. He followed that up with 2007s "This Is It" and a cover of rock band Hinder's smash hit "Lips Of An Angel."

With more popular songs -- "Love You" and "Measure Of A Man" -- Ingram has graduated to playing shows for tens of thousands of people with Dierks Bentley, Sheryl Crow and Martina McBride. He'll be on tour with the latter for the immediate future.

"People in Texas know who I am and have for a while. But people in Boise, Idaho, just found who I was through 'Lips Of An Angel' or 'Wherever You Are' or some of those songs that are climbing up the charts," Ingram said. "So it's all real, as they say."

Playing before such large audiences at massive amphitheaters while touring with others is a goal for many musicians, Ingram said -- it just took him awhile to get there.

But the singer is still a Texas boy, staying true to his "rule of the road" to put on the best show no matter the crowd size.

"Where we are now is a long way away from playing the Ponderosa for 74 people on (a) Friday night," Ingram recalled of his past shows in Abilene. "It's certainly a long way away from the first gig that I did at Adair's Saloon in Dallas."