A cowboy music festival in Elko, Nevada; June, 1994. A group of musicians out behind the performance tent. Someone turned to a young fellow with a guitar slung across his back. “Brenn, sing that song again—the one you wrote about your Grandpa.”
Sometimes, you just know the real deal from the get go. Brenn Hill was just eighteen, but there was no doubt that music was his destiny. Over the next few years, we got to know Brenn and his parents, who traveled with him most of the time. He never failed to acknowledge them from the stage, or lost the humility that impressed us at first meeting. A few weeks in Nashville let him know that what they were buying wasn’t the truth he was selling. His Grandpa died, and he came home to follow the foundation in his heart.
We got to know the girl he married, attended a fund raiser in Elko when one of his kids developed cancer, and cried over a song on the CD he recorded during that time, about a father hanging onto his faith. He kept writing songs and singing them for people who love the west. Their son got well.
Brenn gives back, and pays forward; he showed up to play at a fund raiser in Wyoming after a horse wreck put our grandson in law out of commission for a while. During covid, he took jobs in construction because live music performances were off the table, but he was still horseback in the mountains whenever possible, and still writing songs about that life.
The title song on Brenn’s latest CD is, Horses and War, and it pays tribute to the horses that went into battle, from the Roman Empire onward. His photo on the cover shows a man of middle-age, and I ask myself how can that be? But we’ve all traveled a lot of miles since 1994, and it’s bound to show.
Another song on that recording is about a cowboy who spent a lifetime riding the rough string. One of the lines says, “He rides better than he walks.” I’m a people watcher, and when I sit in a parking lot waiting for the shopper in our family to finish his business, I take note of those guys who are slow getting out of the pickup, and list to one side as they make their way into the store. And I know they’re the real deal, because I walk that way too, and can tell where it hurts, because I carry those scars myself.
Recently, I’ve noticed some young men about the age that Brenn was when we met, who never make eye contact and seldom smile, or register an awareness of life that’s happening all around them. I wonder if that’s a result of the technology we’re focused on, or a lack of home training. But I hope they’ll find a dream like Brenn Hill did, and hang onto it’s tail while it takes them down a trail along with people who are the real deal.
Meet me here next week and meanwhile, do your best. Somebody might like it.