I wasn’t fortunate enough as a child to have horses or to be from a horsey family. However, we lived in rural Cleveland County, North Carolina, where a great many people had horses. Being the son of the local Baptist minister, I knew everyone in the community, and, between the ages of eight and thirteen, I was allowed to ride the horses of various church members. At the age of ten or so, I distinctly recall telling Carl DeBrew that I wanted to foxhunt when I grew up. I lived next door to Carl’s wonderful grandparents, who had a true family farm. They enriched my childhood more than any other people, including my own grandparents. Mr. Lee and Miss Carey DeBrew treated me like one of their own grandchildren, and I was allowed to ride their mule anytime I wanted (when it was not working!). Carl had two horses and was great about letting me ride them.
For many reasons the desire to foxhunt expressed at age ten did not come into fruition until age fifty-three. When I did begin foxhunting it soon became clear to me that there existed no body of contemporary music describing the foxhunting experience. I found this amazing, given that there are perhaps ten thousand foxhunters representing about 170 hunt clubs around North America. Ian Tyson, Tom Russell, and many others had written songs recording the lifestyles and experiences of the remaining true working cowboys. I even discovered a CD in a catalog—from which I was ordering chainsaw files and chains—about logging and the lifestyles and experiences of modern lumberjacks. But zero on foxhunting!
By the beginning of my seventh season of foxhunting, I knew I had to try to record the foxhunter’s experience. At least, my slant on it. I had by then amassed enough experience from which to draw material for writing the songs. I am also a lifelong hunter of various species, and through some of my teen years was a night hunter.
In November of 2007 I began. Coyote Line was the first effort. I wrote it while sitting in my truck, taking a break from working on a run-in shed in a friend’s back pasture. It came pretty quickly. About twenty minutes. Six-and-a-half years and twenty minutes, that is!
Then came the inevitable refining and rephrasing and all the bits and pieces of the songwriter’s craft. All this in concert with constant guitar and singing practice. I had gotten rusty, and, being mediocre anyway, trying to get the voice, hands, and timing back in shape was a monumental task.
Whatever my many faults, I am not an egotistical person, and for me to put out a record has been one of the most difficult and intimidating undertakings of my life. Nevertheless, I had to do it. I wanted to record the feelings at the core of this wonderful, visceral, beautiful, and ancient experience, which is so meaningful to so many of us.
The music on my CD, Meeting in the Morning, is dedicated to the horses that have carried me safely over the past seven seasons. To Miss Deci, Moonlight, Grace, Lefty, Dano, and Angel: thank you my friends and partners. I hope my treatment of you has always reflected my gratitude.