Sometimes, if you’re lucky, hearing the right song at just the right moment can cause a storm to brew inside your soul and change the course of your life forever. Just ask singer/songwriter Brian Hughes.
Hailing from Poteau, Hughes explains that while on a flight through the Rocky Mountains, amidst his first big move from home to Colorado after high school graduation, a chance playing of a John Denver album his mother had given him as an inside joke shook him to the core.
“I heard ‘Rocky Mountain High,’ and something changed deep inside of me from that point on. It’s when I really discovered the power of a song,” Hughes says.
Having no prior musical background, songwriting became his passion from that day forward, and he taught himself to sing and play guitar – thus propelling his life in an entirely unexpected direction.
With an earthy, country sound that’s been described as walking the line between Red Dirt and Americana, Hughes is now fresh on the music scene, and since his debut last November, he’s had a huge response from music lovers.
Not only is he an avid supporter of local musicians, drawing inspiration from his peers’ stories and performances, but many of the big musicians in Tulsa are already calling him one of their own as well.
Titled Cavanal, Hughes’ upcoming September debut album pays tribute to the historic “world’s highest hill” in his hometown, and through his songwriting, offers music fans something you just don’t find much in country music these days – and that’s a taste of hard, Oklahoma country roots.
“I want people to hear about what I go through and the things that I’ve seen and the misfortunes I’ve had. I want to accomplish helping people – I want them to say, ‘Brian Hughes knows us. He knows how it is in Oklahoma. He knows what we go through.’ I don’t want to just sell myself to music and call it good,” he says.
“I believe in a natural ear for music, but as hard as I’ve worked at it, I don’t believe that I’m a natural musician. I don’t believe I have a natural gift, but I believe that God’s put people in my life to help me develop a gift. By no means am I there yet, but I like to think I’m always getting better. I’m just brewing. That’s what I’m doing.”
