“Death of an Unpopular Poet” is a song by Jimmy Buffett that appeared on one of his early albums. I know I have a lot of fellow songwriters and poets within the sound of my voice. I hope our pets fare at least as well as Spooner.

The other day in a Facebook guitar group I follow we were asked to share our worst “gig” story. It was fun reading through the comments that show why you need a sense of humor if you’re going to try to play in public. It put me in mind of this song. “Stories We Could Tell” was written by John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful fame and covered by BJ Thomas, Tom Petty, and others, but I heard it first on an early Jimmy Buffett album. If you’ve ever gigged, even if just for family gatherings, you’ve got stories to tell.

“Amarillo by Morning” was written by Terry Stafford and Paul Fraser and George Strait’s cover of it propelled him to stardom. It’s a great song and I’ve wanted to learn it for a long time but it never felt right without that simple but beautiful fiddle line in the intro/outro. I finally sat down and worked out a guitar part to try to mimic the fiddle. Don’t know how well I succeeded, but here’s my solo version of this country classic.

Another entry under the category of “Songs You Know but Didn’t Know They Were Kris Kristofferson Songs.” One mark of a great song is that it can be successfully sung by a wide range of musical stylists. “For the Good Times” has been covered by everyone from Ray Price (#1 on the country charts and Song of the Year by the ACM), to Perry Como, to Al Green, to Elvis Presley. As I’ve mentioned before, Kristofferson’s songs usually aren’t musically or lyrically complex—they’re just honest, relatable, and memorable. Hope you enjoy my attempt at it. Thanks, as always, for listening and commenting.

I’m in a great online guitar community and one of my friends from there, Ben Eastman, invited Ed Gonzales, John Bacon, Gary Schoolcraft and myself to join in on a collaboration to perform Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown.” Except for the drum track, the music and singing is all us. He asked us to perform outdoors in our locale….so “collectively” from Texas, Missouri, California, and Arizona here is Ben’s video of our version of “Sundown.”

Here’s another Kris Kristofferson song that’s been recorded by just about everyone and is a country classic. I’ve always done “Help Me Make It Through the Night” as a slow and plaintive song, but when I went back to listen to Kristofferson’s versions on YouTube I was surprised to hear that he usually does it up-tempo. Obviously, that’s the way he heard it when he wrote it, so I reworked my version to better match his delivery.

If it’s true that a good country song consists of “three chords and the truth,” then Kris Kristofferson knew the formula. This example was written when he was working as a helicopter pilot servicing offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Roger Miller first recorded it, then Kris released it on an album, but it was Janis Joplin’s cover that brought it to national attention. It was actually released posthumously and became Janis’s only top 10 hit. Here’s my take on “Me and Bobby McGee.”

This Jerry Jeff Walker classic is one of those songwriting rarities: a sad song that will make you smile. It became a staple for The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Sammy Davis, Jr. and was recorded by a host of other artists. Although Walker once described it as “a song about a drunk and a dead dog,” it still projects hope. Sometimes, you just have to dance to remember that the world can be a beautiful place.

“Been Gone Too Long” is another of my originals. I’m not sure if I first wrote this song on a 12-string guitar, but it’s definitely my instrument of choice for this one.

A couple of weeks ago a friend requested some Willie Nelson from me. I’ve never actually played any of Willie’s songs (other than “Blue Eyes…”) and he specifically mentioned this song, so I thought I’d tackle it. I’m glad I did, because in the two weeks I’ve spent with it, I’ve fallen in love with this song. (Also gave me a reason to don the cowboy hat again.)

I tried to preserve some of Willie’s signature guitar licks, like his ever-present bass walks. His son, Lukas, does a great version of it and I borrowed a couple of his licks, as well, but I tried to also put my own stamp on this performance. Willie wrote “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” and held it for a while before including it in the soundtrack for his Honeysuckle Rose movie. It was released as a single and became a chart-topper for him. I’m pretty happy with this one–hope you enjoy it, too.