Music has taken me a long way from home. Atlanta and Athens, Georgia, were part of that life, as were New Orleans, New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, London, and San Francisco. Along the way, I’ve carried a guitar into plenty of rooms where I didn’t know a soul.
For years, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere but a big city. I loved having so much going on around me, and I figured that was where I’d always want to be.
Hattiesburg had already given me reason to reconsider. I first came here for an Artist-in-Residence position at Southern Miss. I made friends, got to know the musicians, and built a connection to the town that stayed with me when I moved to Jackson and then New Orleans.
During the pandemic, I began to pine for the Piney Woods. There’s your dad joke. You’re welcome.
I was working remotely and realized I could live anywhere. And the place I wanted to live was Hattiesburg’s historic district.
So I came back.
These days, I live in a 1910 house in a walkable historic neighborhood, and I love it. I still want to travel, play new rooms, and see more of the world. I also love coming home.
When you arrive in a town as a musician, you tend to find the other musicians pretty quickly. You go to their shows. Someone introduces you. Eventually, you play together. Over time, the people you first knew because you liked their songs become the people you’re glad to see at the grocery store.
That happened to me here.
Hattiesburg gave me friends, people to make music with, and audiences willing to listen to songs I had written. Those things have a way of making a place feel like home.
I’ve also had the pleasure of playing across Mississippi. Working at Visit Mississippi gave me another way to get to know this state—its music, food, history, and the people who make each town worth a visit.
Those connections have helped shape Back Roads & Back Stories, a show I developed as an outgrowth of The Porch Sessions. I bring songwriters together to share their songs and the stories behind them. Taking it to museums and gathering places around Mississippi has introduced me to more good musicians, new friends, and people who care about what’s being made close to home.
In March, we brought the show to Midtown Green’s Craig Wiseman Stage. A few hundred people came out for the free concert, supported through Mississippi Musicians Month in partnership with the Midtown Merchants Association.
I got to sit beside friends whose work I admire and share our songs with the town where we live. We had an idea, and other people helped turn it into an evening.
You can see that support at Live at Five, where people gather downtown for free concerts, or at the Hattiesburg Arts Council’s Brown Bag Concert Series. My band recently played a Brown Bag show at The Commons at Gordon’s Creek. People took a break from their Thursday to sit and listen.
You see it in the businesses that keep hiring musicians, too. The Keg & Barrel, Grill & Grocery, The Porter, and other local rooms give us places to play and people to play for.
Take Sully’s, for example. They’ve consistently hired musicians for years, across multiple locations. Those regular dates give musicians paid work, room to develop, and opportunities to put an original song in front of someone who hasn’t heard it before.
Which is why November 20 means so much to me.
That night, my band will join Blue Mountain, Grits & Greens, and Jacob Arnold & The Bird Dogs for the Hattiesburg Music Showcase at the historic Saenger Theater.
The city and the people who operate the Saenger are putting their support behind an evening of original music from our region. For years, I’ve wanted to see the musicians who live and work here on that stage, performing their own songs as the reason people bought a ticket.
We’ve all played plenty of opening sets. I’m grateful for those opportunities, too. But there’s something special about your own community saying, “We want to hear what you’ve been making,” and giving you a beautiful room in which to share it.
The plan is to make this an annual event. My hope is that Hattiesburg’s commitment will encourage other Mississippi communities to try something similar. There are musicians across this state making work their neighbors deserve to hear, and people who could help give those songs a stage.
On November 20, I’ll get to walk onto a stage here at home, alongside musicians I admire, knowing that friends will be somewhere out in the room.
After all those miles, that sounds pretty good to me.
Listen to the Hattiesburg Music Showcase Spotify playlist.
Tickets and show information: hattiesburgsaenger.com.
