Although I grew up listening to the music of John Prine - he's as much a staple in my father's household as grits - I didn't really get turned on musically until I went to college. I had been playing guitar throughout high school, learning the basics of rhythm in the dusty cab of a '68 Ford Ranger rusting away in the backyard. For a while I was floating out there in the limbo of classic rock (good but indistinct music), and that was mostly what I played. But a few years back, while I was attending my junior college, a classmate - okay, let's be honest, a girl I had a crush on - took me for the first time to the Magnolia Festival in Live Oak, Florida, where I underwent a musical baptism and rebirth. I came away completely entranced by bluegrass, folk, Americana, that "old" sound. I guess it fits: I've always been an old soul.
I love to listen for the connective tissue between musicians and their influences, so I thought it'd be a really good idea to put up some kind of sampler of the sort of music I listen to all the time, in case anyone is interested. So here's what I was able to look up on Project Playlist ... it is by no means all-inclusive (of course I couldn't find every album, CD, and miscellaneous track I'm interested in on the Internet, that's why I have a turntable and reel-to-reel machine) but it should give you the general gist of what sort of "popular" music fascinates me.
My fledgling life as a songwriter grew out of a stretch of writer's block. Despite a vibrant academic career as an English major, I had almost quit writing poetry altogether. But my brother James had learned to play some pretty mean electric guitar and we were jamming together regularly, I providing rhythm guitar in the absence of drums. Our jam sessions produced a few songs, mostly blues-based and/or rock-oriented: Stranded in Texas, By My Side, Free as a Lark, and Judgment. For all of these songs (except Free as a Lark), I wrote lyrics, often impromptu while playing, over James's music. Eventually, during a bout of frustration over my poetic block, my father challenged me to write a song in an hour (after he told me how Pete Rose similarly challenged Hank Williams). It actually took me about three hours to write The Ballad of Black Jim, a folk rambler about hobo life during the Great Depression, but after completing it, I began to see some potential in songwriting as a poetic outlet. I don't count myself much of a musician, but I regularly play open mics and go to music festivals, and that exposure has urged me to write more songs. Fire in the Wiregrass developed out of a simple riff and a campfire stringband session with Ralph Roddenbery at Smilefest in North Carolina. I found Lazy Susan during, of all things, a trip to a home improvement store. During my 2007 summer break from college, the songwriting has picked up again, and I've a new collection of songs in the making: Look Who's Come to Say Goodbye, Red Stick, East Juliette, and Cabinet of Wonders. I created this MySpace site for two purposes: getting these songs out for the benefit of musicians and bands who might want to record them; and seeking out venues at which I and my fellow musicians can perform. If any musicians/bands are interested in any of my songs (preferably for both recording and performing), please let me know. P.S. I apologize for the poor sound quality on some of these tracks, which were simply the result of good jams around the coffee table. Thanks for listening!
Here's some bigger pictures, because I feel I should put them up. These two people have had the biggest influence in shaping not only my music but also (in a very fundamental sense) who I am. I've been listening to John Prine for literally all of my life; one of my earliest memories is of my father playing "Sam Stone" on his Alvarez in our cramped single-wide living room. I've begun to listen to Gillian Welch only in the last few years, but her music immediately struck a chord in me: from the very first bars of David Rawlings's whiskey-tinged, stumbling guitar on Time (The Revelator), I felt like I was coming home to something deep and immutable in myself, like a secluded spot way back in the woods.
John Prine (on stage in the early '70s)
Gillian Welch (at Bonnaroo)
