A year or so after arriving in Cabbagetown, I began work on my first album as a solo-artist entitled, Neon Steeple. I am a fragile human and was nervous that this, the working on my first album as a solo-artist, might be a terrible idea. Because, well, this time, it would be all my fault. The act of blame displacement is humanity at its most adept. (i.e. Adam, the first man [addressing God], “Um. But. She gave me the fruit!”) In a band, there is the company of compatriots to spread the blame fairly amongst. I chose to combat the negative automatic thoughts associated with this type of individual endeavor with positive cognitive rebuttals.

Such as, “This feeling is uncomfortable, but I can do this.” And, “I’m a capable person who can do many things without the help of others.”  And, “You can do it!” I tried not to let myself worry about anything more than just getting my insides, outside.

    At that time, I was thinking a lot about roots, and home, and place, and belonging. Which makes sense, seeing as I had never lived anywhere outside of the Lone Star State of Texas. The lyrics read like pop colloquial Southern Gospel and the music sounded like bluegrass electronic dance music. Growing up in East Texas, country and western, and bluegrass, and southern gospel were just things in the air, as unavoidable as sweet tea. And too, coming of age in the 80’s, spending superabundant amounts of time in front of the television playing Atari and Nintendo with all those 8-bit beeps-and-blips, well, it’s no wonder that if I were gonna try to get the soul of who I was as a person out into the open, the banjo and fiddle would be sittin’ right up next to the 808 kick drum. “Folktronica," was the proper name for it if we were to have to name a thing as slippery as music. It was front porch hand and foot music with ones and zeros. And there I was, in a new locale called Cabbagetown, trying to find my roots. And you know what? Turns out, that street I landed on, the one with the mill, yeah, it’s where country music was born. For real. True story! As I said, I didn’t know it at the time, but remember all those mill workers that were fetched down from the Appalachians? Well, they brought their music with them, banjos and fiddles in tow. Cabbagetown was country before country was country.

Look it up on the internet machine. Nashville could’ve been Atlanta.

    Funny thing about roots, they take in whatever the soil provides. I don’t know if I would have seen it any other way, but when I looked up, after a couple of years in the ATL, I realized that my first solo album was incredibly, what do you call it? “White.” Which is understandable. Seeing as I am, like, “white.” I mean, I’m extremely, “white.” Like, literally, my skin is that pastie, British-English-White (BEW) that bursts into flames when exposed to direct sunlight. Add to that the whole Texarkana, Texas thing and the overall vibe, I guess you’d call it, that I’m sending out, is like, hillbilly-homeless with an East Texas accent, that on the global spectrum of accents, falls into the infraredneck frequency range. What is beautiful about Atlanta, and far different from everywhere else I’ve lived, is that most of the time I’m outnumbered.

So, there I am, a pastie, white, bearded, infraredneck, hillbilly-talking dude trying to say something about roots and home and belonging while sinking roots and finding a new home and true belonging in this hyper-globalized and diversified city of Atlanta, GA. It didn’t take me long to consider the following: the banjo is an African instrument; the fiddle is an African instrument. 

    On the other side of the tracks, the ones I mentioned earlier that the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill sits on, is the Old Fourth Ward. That’s where freedom was born. If you have not established permanent residency in Atlanta, as in, you still cannot produce a water bill to prove it, you may not know that the Old Fourth Ward is the birthplace of reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and is home of the Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. King was baptized and where he and his father and his grandfather were pastors. Yeah, that’s right across the tracks from Cabbagetown.

    Mrs. Panell told me the parable of the Prodigal Son in Sunday school. I was still of the age where they brought us cookies and Kool-aid and we still played games like Mother May I and we still made neat freaking stuff out of popsicle sticks and glue. But as I grew up, the Prodigal story never really evolved or developed much more nuance than how I first heard it in Sunday school. Seemed like a prodigal was someone who left home and acted out in rebellious ways until thoroughly depleting any and all means of acting out in rebellious ways, at which point the prodigal returns home to a welcoming, ever loving father who is running toward him with open arms, party in tow. Which is pretty darn beautiful.

But I think the real story, the one worthy of an italicized title designating the start of a new allegorical tale as told by the Son of God in the middle of a gospel, The Parable of the Prodigal Son, is way more indicting than just calling out a rebel.

Turns out the word “prodigal” is an adjective meaning “lavish”. At the very beginning of the story, which may be the most puissant, the father bestows his inheritance on both of his sons. Both are lavished upon by the father. As an American, currently living in Atlanta, GA, USA, I know what it means to be lavished upon. To find our place on this planet, here in such a land of blessing, what shall we do with what has been placed upon us?

    IF EVER THERE WERE A PLACE DIVIDED…

    The current social and political atmosphere, even on a prefatory level, can give rise to a ruinous reduction in your sense of well being. Watching the news, or reading editorials, or op-editorials, or listening to the people at the table next to yours at Denny’s, brings on a sadness no amount of bacon can service. I’ve tried. But I think that we are all a lot more the same than we are different. We’re all just dirt and water and the breath of God. It’s just a painted line. Or, some railroad tracks. Either way, it’s a thing someone put there without asking. Maybe, what I’m supposed to be doing, having been lavished upon, is pointing out that a person can stand right there in the divide, brave and free, and not feel a thing. I know what it means to have the divide spanned on my behalf.

Grace works on us all just the same. Love works on us all just the same. Freedom works on us all just the same. There’s only one definitive line and that’s the one between death and life. These songs are about that divide spanned on our behalf and I pray they are subversive and healing in their insistence of that reality.





Rhett Walker Band Bio

Grammy-nominated Rhett Walker Band has released a brand new single, "Say Hello," that is available now and will be on the upcoming self-titled EP releasing August 10th in partnership with Essential Records/Sony Music. Also debuting today is the music video for "Say Hello," which you can watch here or below.

“I'm super excited for this new video," shares Rhett Walker. "I think the team captured the essence of this song. 'Say Hello' is about how it's easy to close off in our own little world and focus on our shame and get caught up in the what-ifs and how that can be a downward spiral, but the reality is because of Jesus, you can say 'hello' to the brand new you and find freedom and a family. Say 'goodbye' to the worn and weary and say 'hello' to the brand new you.”

Fans can also look forward to two additional songs debuting this summer before the August release date.To pre-order the EP, click here. To stream or download "Say Hello," click here. 

Lauded since their 2012 debut album Come To The River, which includes the GRAMMY-nominated song, "When Mercy Found Me," Rhett Walker Band has been featured in The Huffington Post, Fox News, Relevant and Parade online, among many others. This new song follows the 2017 single "I Surrender." See below for the current tour dates for the Rhett Walker Band. 

ABOUT: Rhett Walker Band has released two albums, 2012's Come To The River and Here's To The Ones in 2014. The band was nominated for a GRAMMY for the single "When Mercy Found Me." The band has also toured with the biggest Christian artists, such as MercyMe, Newsboys and more, and appeared multiple times on the Grand Ole Opry. They are also three-time GMA Dove Award nominees (New Artist of the Year, Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year and Rock/Contemporary Song of the Year). The music critic Bob Lefsetz of The Lefsetz Letter stated, “If you like rock music, if you like power chords, dynamics, changes…if you like nodding your head, putting on an album and letting it play from beginning to end, putting you in a mood wherein the rest of the world does not matter, this is for you! ...And listen to Rhett’s vocal. Boy, this guy can SING! I didn’t have to play this album five times to get it. I didn’t have to tap my foot, waiting to be hooked. I was enthralled IMMEDIATELY!”