Stories Behind the Songs
This chapter isn’t just about how songs were written.
It’s about where they came from—people, places, moments, and sometimes things that didn’t make sense until years later.
Some of these stories will be clear as a bell.
Others might come back in pieces—like an old melody you almost forgot but never really lost.
They don’t need to be perfect.
They just need to be honest.
Whiskey in the Sand
“Whiskey in the Sand” came from memories I carried for a long time before I ever found a way to put them into a song.
My dad struggled with whiskey.
And when he drank, he wasn’t the same man.
I remember riding with him as a kid, going to the liquor store. Back then, it didn’t seem like anything unusual—it was just something we did. But there were other days that felt different. Days when he’d leave in the morning and not come back until late afternoon or even into the night. Most of the time, he came home drunk.
When he pulled into the yard, you had to be ready.
Sometimes he’d be so drunk he’d park the truck out in the yard and just sit there with the engine still running until he passed out behind the wheel. I remember walking out there, a kid, shutting the engine off so it wouldn’t run all night. I’d find the bottle and pour what was left of the whiskey out into the sand.
That image stayed with me.
That’s where the title came from.
Other times, he wouldn’t pass out right away. And those were the nights you worried about. My mom and us kids would have to leave the house—sometimes in the cold, sometimes with nothing but the clothes we had on—and find somewhere to wait it out. We’d stay gone until we knew it was safe to come back. Eventually, he’d lay down and fall asleep, and the house would settle again.
Then morning would come, and it would feel like a new day.
For a long time, I stayed on the outside of those memories. When I wrote story songs, I could keep a little distance—like I was observing someone else’s life instead of my own. But this one didn’t let me do that. I had to go back into it, not just look at it.
There were times I couldn’t even play the song all the way through without breaking down. I had to sit with it, over and over, until I could finally share it without falling apart.
The first person I played it for was my wife, Casandra. We’ve been together since 1994, back when I first moved to Abilene and really started writing country songs. She’s always the first one to hear anything new—whether it’s a blessing or a curse—and I trust her to tell me the truth.
After that, I took it to a guitar pull and played it for some friends and fellow songwriters. They didn’t say much at first, but I could tell they felt it. And when they did speak, they told me it needed to be recorded—that it had a place.
We ended up recording it at Wonderland Records in Clyde, Texas, and I made it the title track of the album.
It’s a heavy song. You can feel that in the room when it’s played. Even the studio musicians picked up on it without anything needing to be said.
Over time, I started to understand more about my dad too. He was a World War II veteran, and when I looked deeper into his service, I realized he had been through some of the worst kind of fighting—house-to-house combat. Back then, men came home from things like that and were expected to just carry on with life. There wasn’t much room to talk about it, and not much help for what followed.
Looking back, I believe a lot of what we lived through started there—with things he carried that never really left him.
And in a way, that got passed down.
This song was the first time I allowed myself to go all the way into those memories instead of standing at a distance from them. Maybe that’s why it feels like the most important song I’ve written so far.
I don’t know if it’s for everyone.
But for anyone who’s lived something like it, I think they’ll understand.
And whether it helps anyone else or not, I know it helped me—just to finally go there and tell it the truth.
Amen.
That was my story.
But not all my songs came from my own life.
Stories Behind the Songs: Historical Journeys
One of the things I’ve always been drawn to as a songwriter is history.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading books and watching documentaries about real people who lived through hard times—struggles, triumphs, and everything in between. In a way, it lets me travel back in time. I try to put myself in their place, walk in their boots for a while, and then tell their story through a song.
Most of my songs are part of a journey, one way or another.
Sometimes that journey just happens to take place a hundred years ago.
“Dust Bowl”
I wrote “Dust Bowl” after watching a PBS documentary about that time in American history. The struggles those families went through left a deep impression on me.
It hit even closer to home because my mom and dad both lived through the Great Depression, and they had shared stories with me about how hard those times were. Hearing it from them and then seeing it brought to life on screen made it real in a different way.
I’ve always been influenced by songwriters like Woody Guthrie, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt, and I think that influence found its way into this song.
When we went into the studio, something special happened. Garrett Bryan was on bass, Jordan Tyler Haynes on electric guitar, and Taylor Barringer on drums. After just a couple of run-throughs, we all knew we had something. It came together fast—one of those moments you can’t manufacture.
There was something deep and haunting in that first take, and we didn’t want to lose it by overworking the song. What you hear on the recording is that moment.
That’s why I made it the title track of the album. It captured exactly where we were headed.
“Oilfield Boomtown”
“Oilfield Boomtown” was inspired by the book The Murchisons: The Rise and Fall of a Texas Dynasty by Jane Wolfe.
I’ve always been drawn to Texas culture and history, so that story grabbed me right away. In my mind, I went back to the oilfield boomtowns of the 1920s—places full of people chasing opportunity, chasing black gold, chasing a better life.
You can almost see them—moving from town to town, carrying everything they own, hoping the next stop is the one that changes everything.
I tried to capture that spirit in the song.
I’ve written other oilfield-related songs too. One of them, “Roughneck Son,” was co-written with my friend Henry Goff as a tribute to his father. That song has taken on a life of its own over the years, recorded and performed by others and becoming something of an anthem in West Texas.
“Dear Maria”
“Dear Maria” came from reading The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie.
The song follows a young man on his first cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail. He’s far from home, dealing with the rough, dangerous life of the trail, but his thoughts keep going back to Maria.
It’s written as a letter—his way of holding onto something steady in the middle of a hard and uncertain life.
Like a lot of these songs, it’s about ordinary people living through extraordinary times.
“Deadman’s Hand”
“Deadman’s Hand” was inspired by the life and legend of Wild Bill Hickok.
I had heard the phrase “aces over eights” and got curious about the story behind it. That led me down the path of learning more about Wild Bill and the legend of the dead man’s hand.
From there, I took a creative turn. Instead of telling the story straight, I imagined something darker—almost like a twilight zone version of events. In the song, Wild Bill has already died and made a deal with the devil, coming back to settle scores.
It’s a more theatrical song than most of what I do, but I’ve always liked it for that reason. It’s a different kind of storytelling.
“Little Hand”
“Little Hand” comes from my fascination with Texas lore, especially the story of the Alamo.
I wanted to tell that story from a different perspective—not from the battlefield itself, but from the point of view of a man who traveled from Tennessee to Texas with Davy Crockett.
As the song unfolds, you realize it’s really about the woman he left behind—his “Little Hand”—and the life he knows he’ll never return to.
I did quite a bit of research on the journey from Tennessee to Texas and tried to weave in some of the East Texas imagery I grew up with, blending history with something personal.
“Paulita”
“Paulita” is a song about Billy the Kid and Paulita Maxwell, even though his name is never mentioned directly.
The story takes place after Billy escapes from Lincoln County, having killed the two lawmen sent to guard him. Instead of running as far as he can, he goes back to the one place he shouldn’t—back to Paulita.
There’s something haunting about that decision, and I tried to capture that feeling in the song.
Part of the reason I recorded it at all was because one of my daughters fell in love with it and kept asking me to put it on an album.
Like a lot of these songs, it’s a reflection—Billy looking back at the road that led him there, knowing how it’s all going to end.
Stories Behind the Songs: Honky-Tonk Nights
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love honky-tonk music.
Not just the sound of it—the fiddles, the steel guitars, the rolling piano—but the people and the places that come with it. Old dance halls full of folks from every walk of life. Working men, cowboys, roughnecks, dreamers, drifters, and people just looking to forget about something for a while.
Honky-tonk has always been more than music to me.
It’s a world. And a lot of my songs come from stepping into that world and watching what unfolds.
“Lone Star Highway”
“Lone Star Highway” was the first true honky-tonk song I ever wrote.
It’s not really about a road. It’s about a way of living—that honky-tonk lifestyle where people cut loose for a night and don’t worry too much about what comes the next morning.
There’s a steady groove to it, that boogie-woogie kind of bass line, with piano and electric guitar carrying the feel. The song talks about those “honky-tonk angels,” the kind of Texas women you admire from across the floor but don’t quite have the nerve to ask to dance.
And in the middle of it all, people just let go.
For a few hours, nothing else matters.
“Too Country for Country”
“Too Country for Country” came from my early experiences trying to break into Nashville.
I sent a lot of homemade demos out back then, hoping something might land. Nothing ever really came of it. Looking back, that shotgun approach probably wasn’t the best way to go about it—but at the time, I didn’t know any different.
That song is a lighthearted jab at that whole experience. Maybe a little self-reflection too.
Over time, I realized something important:
who I am, the life I’ve lived, and the songs I write—they fit better in Texas, in Americana, in the kind of music that tells stories the way I want to tell them.
The song leans hard into that classic honky-tonk sound—rolling bass, crying steel guitar, and piano that doesn’t try to behave itself.
Funny enough, after all that, when I sent the song to CDX Nashville, they actually pushed it out to radio. It may not be one of my biggest songs, but it’s one of those that people either get right away… or they don’t.
“Neon Light”
“Neon Light” is the only honky-tonk song on the Whiskey in the Sand album.
But it carries a different tone than the others.
It’s not really celebrating that lifestyle—it’s about being stuck in it. A man waking up to the realization that he’s spent too many years under those neon lights and missed out on parts of life that mattered more.
That’s what drew me to it. The imagery, the feeling of looking back and seeing time slip by.
It’s a song I still believe in, and one I may push as a single. There’s something in it that feels like it could reach people.
“Honky Tonk Rose”
“Honky Tonk Rose” is a storytelling song set out in West Texas.
It starts with a hitchhiker who stumbles into a bar along his journey. The place is called the Honky Tonk Rose, and through a conversation with the owner, the story of the bar begins to unfold.
There was a woman—a singer everyone called Honky Tonk Rose. The owner loved her but never told her. One day, she left with a cowboy who promised her everything.
Years later, he hears her voice again on the radio, under a different name—but it’s still her.
There’s a little influence in there from the story of Judge Roy Bean and Lillie Langtry—unspoken love, distance, and time passing without anything ever being resolved.
When we went into the studio, we originally planned to record thirteen songs. But I kept bringing in more as we went along, and before long we had twenty. We ended up splitting them into two albums.
“Honky Tonk Rose” was one of the last songs I brought in. I wasn’t even sure about it at first. But once we recorded it and I heard it come to life, I fell in love with it.
I’m glad it made the cut.
There are still plenty of honky-tonk songs I’ve written that haven’t made it into the studio yet.
But they’re there, waiting.
And I’ve got a feeling they’ll find their way out one way or another.
Stories Behind the Songs: Family and Loved Ones
A lot of my songs come from family.
Not just memories, but real lives—real struggles, real love, real moments that stay with you long after they’ve passed. These are the people who shaped me, whether they knew it or not, and a lot of what I write is my way of remembering them… and maybe understanding them a little better.
“Prayer and Tears” / “Sober Sunrise”
These songs were inspired by my brother Mikey.
Mikey left home when he was around fourteen years old, trying to find his place in the world. He told me later about hitchhiking all over the country—sleeping wherever he could, sometimes on the side of the road. A lot of that came from the hard relationship he had with our dad.
He struggled with alcohol and substance abuse for a long time. But in his later years, he found something different. He found sobriety, and more than that, he found purpose. He spent time working with others through NA, helping people who were walking the same road he had walked.
He had a way about him—he loved to laugh, and most of the time he carried a smile.
Mikey died around the age of forty in a construction accident. That loss hit all of us hard.
But when I think about him, I don’t just think about the struggles. I think about what he overcame. I think about the way he turned things around and tried to help others do the same.
Truth is, I could write a whole book about his life.
“Love Her More Than Texas”
This song was inspired by my brother James—better known as “Booger Red.”
Like Mikey, James left home at a young age. His life took him back and forth between East Texas and Gold Beach, Oregon, where his wife Tootsie was from.
James was one of the toughest, hardest-working men I’ve ever known. Growing up, nobody messed with me—I was Booger Red’s little brother, and that meant something.
He went through a lot in his life. He lost a foot in a construction accident, but even with a prosthetic, he could still outwork just about anyone. He had grit—real grit—the kind you don’t see every day.
Later, he was diagnosed with cancer. Even then, he faced it with strength and a sense of humor. Eventually, he moved back to Gold Beach to be with the family he loved so much.
He passed away around the age of forty.
The song uses places like L.A., but the heart of it—the strength, the loyalty, the love—that all comes from James.
“Mama’s Been Smoking”
This one comes from a different kind of memory.
Back in the late ’70s in Athens, my dad was growing marijuana, and eventually he got arrested and sent to prison for a while. It was a hard time for our family—confusing and difficult to understand as a kid.
But when I wrote the song, I chose to approach it in a lighter way.
Sometimes humor is the only way to tell a story like that.
Mama never smoked, at least not that I know of—but I think she would’ve gotten a laugh out of the song. Looking back now, it’s one of those chapters that became part of the family legend.
There’s a whole lot more to that story… but that’s one better told over a cold beer.
“Highway 31”
“Highway 31” is about growing up in East Texas.
I drove that road more times than I can count in an old Ford I bought from my dad. Those were the years where I was trying to figure out who I was and where I was headed.
A lot of nights I’d roll in around two or three in the morning, and I can still hear my dad telling me I needed to get some rest. But back then, I just kept going—didn’t know any other way.
That song captures that feeling of not having it all figured out, but moving forward anyway.
It became one of my signature songs. We played it with the band Ranch Hand and even performed it at the Colgate Country Showdown in Abilene.
For me, it always felt like it belonged on that first album.
“Blackjack, Texas”
I’ve already touched on this one elsewhere, but it belongs here too.
It’s about my dad and those early days of music—the gatherings, the songs, the way music lived in our house.
I came up with the name “Blackjack Troubadours” for the group he played with, even though they weren’t officially a band. But truth be told, they were as good as any band I’ve ever heard.
I sometimes call myself the “Blackjack Troubadour.”
But if I’m being honest, my dad was the original.
“Close Your Eyes” / “Cryin’ Shame”
These songs come from my life with Casandra.
Back in the early days, when we were living in base housing at Dyess Air Force Base, I’d stay up late writing—sometimes until two or three in the morning if I had something going.
One night, she woke up and came into the room where I was writing. She had that just-woke-up look, standing there in her nightgown, asking when I was coming to bed.
She didn’t realize how beautiful she looked in that moment.
After she went back to sleep, I stayed up even later and wrote “Close Your Eyes.”
“Cryin’ Shame” came from a different place—a story about loving someone who doesn’t love you back. I didn’t think much of it at first, but Casandra did. She told me every person wants to be loved the way the person in that song loves.
That was enough for me. I recorded it on the first album for her.
She’s always had a good ear for a great song.
Family
When I look back, it’s not just individual songs—it’s everything.
My brother Jerome and I singing at the Assembly of God church in Athens with the youth group. My sister Selena singing “Roses Are Red” in those early days—I can still hear her voice.
Family gatherings, sitting around singing old songs together.
My sister Carolyn and my mom singing in church, their voices blended together like angels.
All of it stayed with me.
All of it found its way into the music.
And truth be told, without my family—their encouragement, their belief in me—I don’t know if I ever would’ve had the courage to try any of this at all.
And maybe that’s what all of this really is—
just a way of holding on to the people and moments that made me who I am.