Ted Nugent was born 13 December
1948 in
Detroit and was teaching himself to play the
guitar at the age of 8. (tnugent.com says he was
hunting with
bow and arrow at the age of 5.) He played in a couple of Detroit bands, but after his family moved to
Chicago in
1964, he put together The
Amboy Dukes. They released their first
album in
1967 and had a hit with "
Journey to the Center of Your Mind" in
1968. Over the next few years, the lineup of the band, except for Nugent, changed, and by
1974 they were called "Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes."
Shortly after, even that was dropped and Nugent was a solo artist, famous for unsubtle hard rock songs like "Cat Scratch Fever" and a high-energy live show (apparently the "#1 grossing tour act in the world 1977, 1978, and 1979.") He kept recording and touring with different backing musicians throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but by the late 80s his music was taking a back seat to his opinions. He was vehemently anti-drugs, pro-hunting and outdoorsmanship, and generally politically conservative, a fairly rare viewpoint in the rock world.
In 1990 he, Tommy Shaw of Styx, Jack Blades of Night Ranger, and Michael Cartellone put together the supergroup Damn Yankees and produced some top-selling albums. The hit songs were a lot more melodic than Nugent's earlier work, but the album tracks and the performances where he shot flaming arrows onstage proved that Nugent hadn't changed. Damn Yankees went on hold in 1994 and Nugent started releasing solo albums again the next year. His most recent as of this writing is 2001's "Full Bluntal Nugity."
He has also hosted radio shows in Detroit, written such works as the book God, Guns, and Rock'n'Roll, and magazine articles in various periodicals, produced a PBS series "Spirit of the Wild," served on the board of several organizations (mostly hunting or wildlife-related ones), and been chosen "Father of the Year" at his children's school. He now claims that his hunting provides most of the meat his family eats (even when he's on tour?) and his web site says that he "rock 'n Rolls approximately 6 months per year, hunts 6 months per year."
Sources:
http://www.sonicnet.com/artists/biography/13465.jhtml
http://www.tnugent.com/tnbio/index.shtml (all quotes from here)
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=B56rsa9qgb23s