PEARL - Country recording artist Eric Church will perform a free concert 6 p.m. Tuesday on the Hinds Community College Rankin Campus.

The concert will be limited to 100 ticketholders, about half to be students on the Rankin Campus. The other tickets are being given away by US 96.3 Country radio station, one of the hosts of the free concert.

The concert will be in the George Wynne Hall lecture room. Students can register to win free tickets at the Administration Building on the Rankin County campus.

Church's songs speak plainly about the human condition in the vein of such greats as Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings to John Prine and Steve Earle.

"Honesty is my number one responsibility," Church said. "If you listen to this, you'll find out who I am.

Church grew up in Granite Falls, N.C., in an area known as one of the world's furniture capitals. He recalls being four years old, standing on a table at a local restaurant, singing "Elvira" to a waitress and a handful of patrons who would reward him with change.

"I was 13 when I started writing," he says. "It was before I learned to play guitar. I had a lot in me that I wanted to get out, and I started writing lyrics and singing, and I thought, 'If I'm going to play these for people, I'm going to have to learn how to play guitar.'" He bought a cheap, hard-to-tune one and taught himself to play, influenced by his parents' eclectic tastes, which stretched from Motown to bluegrass.

A talented athlete, he played basketball, baseball and golf in high school, but in college, he turned to music, riding those early gigs to regional acclaim and then a trip to Nashville.

"I wanted to move two years before I graduated," he said, "but my dad made me a deal. He said, 'If you'll graduate, I'll pay for your first six months in Nashville,' which I thought was a pretty good offer. I graduated with a degree in marketing and he was true to his word."

His family and his small-town background had given him a diamond-pure work ethic, which served him well. "I just kind of threw muscle into the writing, so we had a large pool to draw from when it came time to record," he said. "I think I demoed 60 or 70 songs at Sony last year, and you probably demo one out of every four you write, so I wrote a lot. I figure they're paying me to be a songwriter and that's what I'm here to do."

He began getting cuts, including Terri Clark's "The World Needs a Drink." Then, Arthur Buenahora at Sony Tree introduced Eric to producer Jay Joyce; the two clicked instantly, and began cutting demos.

"The night I got the record deal with Capitol was a really good gig," he says. "I knew that whether I got the deal or not, this was as good as I could do. It clicked. You just have those nights. During 'Lightning,' the whole crowd was hushed and I knew they were listening. I knew they were with me on the song, and there's nothing as great as a performer as to capture the crowd.

Two days later, on his birthday, he was in Capitol's office being offered a recording deal; he and Joyce then set about capturing his essence in Joyce's basement studio. The result is a CD that launches Church with a firm identity both musically and lyrically, and gives him his own niche in a diverse country landscape.