“I worked in the oil field for six or seven years, but around 2017 the industry went to poop. There wasn’t enough work, and I got laid off. I started working odd jobs around Fairhope and fell into music.

This is the first guitar I ever bought. Paid for it with one of my first oil field paychecks but never played it. I walked by that guitar one day after I was laid off and thought, ‘I spent way too much money for that thing to not know how to play it.’ I taught myself with internet videos. Played thirty minutes a day–that grew into hours a day and, eventually, a few gigs. Sometimes I play at the Fairhope pier at sunset; people seem to enjoy it. I like to play Tyler Childers’ songs. I get told I look like him. That and Hank Williams, Jr. before he fell off the mountain.

I recently stopped drinking, so I try not to play in bars as much. Quitting cleared my head. I used to have a couple of drinks just to get my confidence up to play places: I don’t need that anymore. The more you play, the more comfortable you get. It comes together, but most good songwriters are familiar with darkness.

I also do a lot of handyman and country boy stuff: anything from wrangling animals to carpentry work. I took last year off from pretty much everything to take care of my grandfather while he was passing away. He was almost ninety-four years old and needed help with everything. I had plenty of time, so me and my uncle remodeled my grandfather’s house. We got him in there for the last year of his life.

I found a ship channel map of the old Mobile Bay in my grandfather’s house; my uncle and I are making that into an art piece. I cut down a cedar tree and milled it to lumber to make the frame. I’m trying to keep my uncle busy. He’s old and can’t work like he used to. Life’s a pretty good humbler.”

Jesse