"Folk musician/farmer Gregory Alan Isakov..."

"Gregory Alan Isakov used to be a vegetable farmer who played folk music. Now he’s a folk musician who works a vegetable farm.

Work, he said, is good for you. He spent all day Thursday with his corn, not wandering around the field in a “Field of Dreams” kind of way, but in a cleaning-corn kind of way. Then he came inside, cleaned up, ate some of the vegetables he grows and wrote more music.

“I’d go crazy if I didn’t work,” he said. “A lot of artists look at life through the window of a tour bus. That’s not good for my art. Work is a really big part of who I am.”

Isakov is like all the greats, in that, his music seems so effortless that you think, “I could do that!” And maybe you could, but only if you’re that talented and willing to work at it. Isakov has been traveling all his life, and his songs show it, with their masterful stories of miles and landscapes and the search for a sense of place..."

Go here for the remainder.

Here's a favorite:

"
The Stable Song"

remember when our songs were just like prayers.
like gospel hymns that you called in the air.
come down come down sweet reverence,
unto my simple house and ring…
and ring.

ring like silver, ring like gold
ring out those ghosts on the ohio
ring like clear day wedding bells
were we the belly of the beast or the sword that fell…we’ll never tell.

come to me clear and cold on some sea
watch the world spinning waves..like some machine

now i’ve been crazy couldn’t you tell
i threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell
now i’m covered up in straw, belly up on the table
well and sang and drank, and passed in the stable.

that tall grass grows high and brown,
well i dragged you straight in the muddy ground
and you sent me back to where i roam
well i cursed and i cried, but now i know…now i know

and i ran back to that hollow again
the moon was just a sliver back then
and i ached for my heart like some tin man
when it came oh it beat and it boiled and it rang..it’s ringing

ring like crazy, ring like hell
turn me back into that wild haired gale
ring like silver, ring like gold
turn these diamonds straight back into coal.