Luke Bryan Recalls Favorite Fourth of July Memories With His Family

Luke Bryan hails from Leesburg, Georgia, and he moved to Nashville a few years after graduating from Georgia Southern University to pursue his music career. But every Fourth of July, he would drive back home to Georgia to spend the holiday with his family, something he misses being able to do.

"Some of my favorite Fourth of July memories were spent on Lake Blackshear down in Georgia with my family," the country star told his record label. "I was always kind of in charge of driving home from Tennessee and picking up all the fireworks and my nieces and nephews always got excited when I rolled in because they knew I had all the fireworks. But, it was always a great memory, and I miss not getting to do that as much as we used to."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luke Bryan Official (@lukebryan)

After moving to Nashville, Bryan spent time working as a songwriter before getting his own record deal and releasing his first album before going on to become one of country music's biggest stars. His journey is chronicled in his upcoming five-part IMDb TV Original docuseries, Luke Bryan: My Dirt Road Diary, which begins streaming on Aug. 6 and features original home videos, interviews and personal footage.

The docuseries was directed by Michael Monaco, who has been filming Bryan's life for years. "He was capturing my life," the "One Margarita" singer recently said on The Ellen DeGeneres Show of Monaco. "And there's A) the challenges of trying to navigate the music business. But then the challenges of all of the loss of some of my siblings and my family members."

"I mean, we felt like, 'Let's put this thing out,'" he continued. "It's been a tough year for everybody and if people see my challenges and the things I've kind of had to go through in life, maybe it'll inspire some people, certainly in these times, to dust themselves off and keep rocking." Bryan's brother Chris died in a car accident in 1996 and his sister Kelly passed away in 2007. Her husband, Ben Lee Cheshire, died unexpectedly in 2014, and Bryan and his wife Caroline took in Kelly and Ben's three kids.

"I tell people, if you've lived this life long enough, life's gonna get you," Bryan said. "You can't be living this long, beautiful life without some ups and downs and challenges. And we've certainly had those. I think this documentary really shows the struggles and stuff that you have to deal with from time to time."