North Carolinian musician-turned-carpenter-turned-musician again, Barrett Davis found himself recommitting to music while navigating supporting his family of four. His upcoming album out October 7th, 2022, The Ballad of Aesop Fin, takes in sound influences that range from Americana to Country, Indie-Folk, and High Lonesome Bluegrass. A first single from the album, “Quiver (feat. Woody Platt)“, has been revealed, and features a story of young lovers facing “social boundaries”.
Davis describes their plight as “…crushing social boundaries and overcoming their fear of achieving true freedom through passion and determination.” Davis is joined on vocals by Woody Platt, longtime lead singer for Brevard, North Carolina’s Grammy-winning outfit Steep Canyon Rangers.
Davis adds regarding the song:
It can stand as a show of support to all who find their love lives to be under the restraint of societal norms or religious condemnation.
Davis says about the album, The Ballad of Aesop Fin:
Aesop Fin is a mythical character, raised in the woods. His dad is a moonshine runner, his mother nowhere to be found. Aesop finds a lover and ends up getting killed in a gambling incident, then she ends up tumbling into a waterfall—it’s symbolic of the vicious cycle of tragedies in these mountains of Appalachia.
Davis went on musical hiatus for several years, getting married and raising a young family, all while starting his own construction business. However, it only fueled his return.
He explains:
Eight years of carpentry was draining, where it was a lot like working in a kitchen. On the jobsite, there’s a lot of old man emotions getting thrown around that none of us would ever talk about. Hearing all those stories? It just fed me all kinds of song material. It was like therapy for me to filter out someone’s traumatic experience they told me, and to learn something about myself within that process.
