Mark Eagleheart – By My Own Light

Songs featured on this album

A Fine Automobile
Andaman Sea
Your Ol Lady
Annalese
Troubadour
God Shaped Hole
Take Me Away
I Drink
Hungry For You
Loving Her Was Easier
A Soft Place To Fall
Feast Of Bread And Water
Loving Arms

Mark Eagleheart waited over 50 years to find his singing voice. Enthusiasm stunted by harsh paternal criticism of his voice as a young man, Mark’s love of music flourished on the dance floor and honky tonks as he strayed from his Oklahoma Choctaw roots and knocked about Texas and the Rocky Mountain west working as a fine arts painter, graphic designer, illustrator, skilled carpenter, mechanic, firefighter and bouncer. He taught himself to play guitar and began singing in jam sessions with friends and in love songs to sweethearts. A large man with an easy smile and lively sense of humor, Mark’s long hair, Choctaw features and near zero tolerance for being treated poorly kept him to rambling though the west until he landed in Taos, where, in the atmosphere of its famed tolerance of diversity and near-subversive incubation of skill and talent, he found a place he could belong.

The genesis of Mark’s debut CD, By My Own Light, was sparked by the encouragement of Don Richmond, of Howlin’ Dog Recording Studio in Alamosa, after Mark recorded a demo track in between backing up Burton Jespersen on 12-string guitar during initial recording sessions of Burton’s Any Road CD. The title, By My Own Light, comes from a line in Kevin Welch’s song Annalese … “no one sees ‘cept by his own light,” Mark’s favorite song on the CD. In his low, resonant voice, phrasing and vocal style, his love for his daughter Annalese shines through the pain of their sometimes troubled relationship. And so it goes with the other songs included in By My Own Light; the album chronicles Mark’s experience, or more perhaps more correctly, his heart’s experience in life which led him to record this music in Taos today. Part of that experience is good humor and devilment, which is more than adequately represented by the CD’s only self-composed song (co-written with Curtis Brown and Rich Weatherbee), Your Ol’ Lady (Don’t Like My Ol’ Lady), and performed as a duet with Curtis Brown, in which two good ol’ boys commiserate over the misfortune of having their respective wives’ discord unplug all the fun they used to have together.

Mark’s interpretation of the Mary Gauthier and Blake Shelton song I Drink was inspired by memories of loneliness pain and despair along the way; Chuck Cannon’s Gos Shaped Hole and Kevin Welch’s Feast of Bread and Water the recall the pain of love that couldn’t be returned but love songs like Kris Kristofferson’s Lovin Her Was Easier and Lovin’ Arms, Hayes Carl’s Take Me Away, an Steve and Patrick Garry’s Hungry for You hint that Mark’s journey was neither always lonely nor without reward.