Daily Discovery: Wyatt Espalin, “Ocoee”

ARTIST: Wyatt Espalin

SONG: “Ocoee” (featuring Jennifer Knapp)

BIRTHDATE: June 2

BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, CA

AMBITIONS: Travel. I want to go everywhere.

TURN-OFFS: You know when you’re watching Karaoke and someone is really getting into it seriously, like it’s a real performance? That’s just weird to watch.

TURN-ONS: After a bottle of wine, anything could go here. Just kidding. I can’t finish two glasses.

DREAM GIG: Opening for Indigo Girls and then coming out on their set to sing “Closer to Fine” with them!

TV ADDICTIONS: I watch 30 Rock episodes over and over.

CELEBRITY CRUSH: Brangelina

MY FAVORITE FORM OF EXERCISE: Creek hiking

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: The Color Purple (but the movie is better)

FIVE PEOPLE I’D LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams and Dolly Parton

I NEVER LEAVE HOME WITHOUT: A demo of my songs

I WROTE THIS SONG: I wrote this song the week that my buddy who performed in Trees Leave with me decided to hang up his touring hat and quit the duo officially. I was feeling abandoned and I reached back into my childhood and remembered all of the promises that my dad would make about coming back to visit my brother and I after he left us. Supposedly, he lived in Chattanooga at the time and we were in North Georgia. We thought that was such a long distance because he never showed again. Eventually, we realized that only the Ocoee River separated us. Eight months after I wrote the song, I randomly ended up as a whitewater raft guide on the Ocoee while on hiatus from the Trees Leave split and trying to figure out what to do next. It was an honor to have one of my songwriting heroes, Jennifer Knapp, sing with me on the recording. This song made her cry when she first heard it and that brought me so much joy, ha! She’s made me cry plenty of times. She’s such an encourager of my songs and I couldn’t ask for a better reason to get off that damn river and start writing again and record this album.