There's something about the South...

It never fails.

Every aspect of my writing, my melodies, my style of playing a musical instrument comes from southern influences. Though sometimes I try to deviate or travel away from those dark, gothic overtones that crawl through my music like kudzu, I can never break free. It's everything that I was raised with, taught, comforted with and ingrained in me from the breath of a baby to the traits of a grown man. I am dark and melancholy...I am southern born.

Faulkner started it. His craft was to drench the reader with all of the angst, tragedy and misfortune that southern folks can stand in a lifetime. His characters portray that unique quality of constant suffering and trouble, sometimes making the reader die a little each time. This opens for the perfect eulogy for a fallen brother in arms...Vic Chestnutt.

It is best that you let his music speak to you in the way that all great southern writers and storytellers can...through their words. I remember hearing Vic's album "About To Choke" and clearly thinking that this is where I want to go musically. He spoke of pain, love and loss the way that a parent boasts of their child. With his death, a piece of that southern gothic goes with him. It's up to us, the ones that remain to pass our stories and our trade around and try to capture that hurt and lonesome sound that is inbred with us all who are born in the South or entrenched here for a long enough period of time.

Be at peace, Vic. You belong to the ages.