From North Texas to Nashville, Mansfield's Drake Milligan is taking over country music

AUSTIN (CBSNewsTexas.com) — Growing up in the outskirts of Mansfield, you would've recognized Drake Milligan anywhere.

That's because his parents, Jim and Angela Milligan, say he was always dressed up as tiny Elvis.

"He was always a showman...always," Jim Milligan says.

His son, now 24, got his first big break playing the King of Rock and Roll in CMT's TV series "Sun Records."

Soon after that, he began to play under a new name—his own.

After brief stints on shows "American Idol" and "America's Got Talent," Milligan moved from North Texas to Nashville, writing country music so good that he's now celebrating his first CMT Music Award nomination for Breakthrough Male Video of the Year for his song "Sounds Like Something I'd Do."  

Though it's a far cry from where he began, his parents say he's still the same.

"What we are most proud of...is that he's still Drake. A good, humble young man."

The CMT Awards will be broadcasted live from the Moody Center in Austin on Sunday, April 2, on CBS News Texas starting at 7 p.m. It will also be available for live and on-demand streaming on Paramount Plus.