Growing up in Athens, GA, Byron Warner played sports, was an Eagle Scout and an acolyte. The only difference between him and the other kids was that his parents had both been performers. Retiring from the New York operatic stage due to injury, his Dad turned to teaching, and founded the voice department at the University of Georgia. His mother, a former ballerina, also taught at the University. By the time he was ten, Byron had been recruited into 9 sports teams, five operas, two plays, and a boys choir.

To help cover college costs, he worked as a disk jockey, led several folk groups, worked as a jack of all trades at a TV station and was the promo voice for the State of Georgia Educational Television Network. He appeared in 14 plays, was Glee Club president for two years, played a year of (scout team) football, and majored in English Literature.

Warner Porter & Warner

After graduation, and military service, he returned to Athens where he co-founded the legendary southern folk group, Warner, Porter and Warner, which appeared on CBS’ The Jackie Gleason Show, and other network variety shows and which, prefacing groups like “The B-52s and REM, became the first of the so-called “Athens Groups” to rise to national prominence, sign a record deal with a major recording company (RCA Victor) and have a hit record. (In The Morning). RCA changed their name to “The Status Cymbal”

The group broke up after seven years, and Byron began a series of learning initiatives. He produced and directed television for PBS, and served again as the Promo voice announcer for it’s Southeastern Network, produced commercial music, and was cast as a voice actor/announcer on many of his campaigns. He moved to New York City and worked as an actor and voice-over performer, while forming a Band and performing his own songs with them,working at such fabled Manhattan acoustic venues such as Gerde’s Folk City, The Bitter End, and The Gaslight.

His songwriting brought him to Nashville, Tennessee, where The Status Cymbal had recorded with Felton Jarvis, Elvis Presley’s Producer, and where Tree Music, one of the largest music publishers in the world had heard of his work and offered him a songwriting contract. With his new wife, Cindy, he flew to Nashville, and recorded his catalogue of songs. Cindy liked Nashville, and Byron recognized its growing vitality as an emerging market. They decided to give the Music City a one-year trial. Three grown children later, they’re still there. A month after arriving, he did his first Nashville commercial as a voice talent. He began to be cast as on-camera talent as well.

Founding a music production company, Ridgewood Productions, he wrote and produced music for some of the country’s biggest advertisers, all the while continuing his efforts in broadcast performance. He slowed the number of his production projects in the late 90s to concentrate on broadcast talent work. Now, hundreds of shoots and thousands of voice sessions later, he’s reaching his peak as a superb voice artist and as a polished and extremely versatile on-camera presence.