Happy birthday Luke Bryan! The singer turned 43 on Friday, July 17. To celebrate his big day, we uncovered 11 surprising facts about the singer.

1. He was born on a peanut farm.

Luke was born to Tommy and LeClaire Bryan in Leesburg, Georgia. Tommy was a peanut farmer, and Luke worked on the farm when he was growing up.

2. He worked in a grocery store.

In addition to working on a peanut farm,  Luke’s first real job was working at Rubo’s in Leesburg, a local grocery store.

“At age 12 thru 13, I worked at Rubos IGA Supermarket in Leesburg, Georgia. I worked during the summers on Monday and Tuesday. I stocked and cleaned up the produce. They paid me under the table …I peeled off all of the brown lettuce,” Luke told Taste of Country. “When I was 15, I was a cashier at K-Mart for two months. I worked at K-Mart for two months, and then I reverted back to Rubos because it didn’t really make sense for me to drive all the way into Albany and work for K-Mart. The benefits were great though — you’d get an hour-long on the blue light special.”

3. He and his wife, Caroline, were college sweethearts.

Luke and Caroline dated in college, and then broke up, because Caroline wasn’t sure she was ready to be serious. But a chance encounter a couple years later made them both realize that there were still sparks between the two, and they’ve been together ever since.

“I was a drug rep in Macon, [Georgia], but I was in Statesboro for work, and my brother said, ’Guess who is playing in town?’” Caroline recalled on the Get Real podcast (via CMT). “I saw Luke playing, and something was different. We made eye contact and we locked eyes. I was in my work clothes, not going-out clothes. I felt like a grandma. Then he took a break, and I thought he was trying to avoid me. So I left. He called my brother’s house at 3:00 a.m., and I answered.

“He was like, ’Where did you go?’ I said, ’I thought you didn’t want to see me,'” she added. “Anyway, we’ve been together ever since. He and I would’ve never ever, ever lasted if we didn’t have a break. We appreciate each other.”

4. His favorite meal is cornbread with turnip greens.

“My dad kept a vegetable garden, and in the winter he grew turnips,” Luke told Southern Living. “He’d cook a big pot of turnips and some flat lace cornbread. Whenever turnips were on the stove, my friends and I would scoop them into big cups and eat them while we drove around in our trucks. Now, that’s about as country as it gets.”

5. He was days away from moving to Nashville when his brother, Chris, was killed in a car accident.

Luke was 19 when his brother died, and he decided to stay home a little longer, until his father forced him to move.

“I said, ‘You know, if you’re going to pursue your music career, you need to pack your truck up and move to Nashville,'” Tommy told ABC News.

6. He gave the eulogy at his brother-in-law’s Ben funeral.

Luke not only lost his brother, Chris, but also his sister, Kelly, who passed away unexpectedly in 2007, followed by Kelly’s husband, Ben, in 2014. Luke, who along with Caroline immediately started taking care of his nieces Kris and Jordan, and nephew Til, spoke at his brother-in-law’s service.

7. He enjoys cooking when he’s home, and has a signature dish.

“I enjoy cooking when I can,” Luke told Yahoo!. “My favorite thing to make is homemade chicken and rice soup. My dad has a special barbecue sauce that we are addicted to so I always whip that up if we are making our own barbecue at the farm.”

8. The first album he ever bought was Thriller by Michael Jackson.

If you didn’t have Thriller, you weren’t cool,” Luke said (via ABC Audio). “Yes, I could moonwalk. No, we couldn’t afford the glove and the red jacket.”

9. He wrote Billy Currington’s “Good Directions.”

Luke wanted to be a songwriter as much as a singer, so he got to work as soon as he moved to Nashville writing songs, including “Good Directions,” with Rachel Thibodeau. The song was a No. 1 hit for Billy.

10. His name isn’t Luke.

Although he has gone by Luke for years, his original name is Thomas Luther. After first shortening Luther to Luke, he decided to just go by Luke instead of Thomas.

11. His mother taught him to dance to George Strait.

“Not like the butt shaking I do onstage,” Luke said. “She taught me how to really dance: how to slow dance properly, how to lead a lady and be a gentleman. I love the memory of dancing cheek-to-cheek with my mama in our living room to George Strait’s ‘You Look So Good in Love.'”