Once Upon a Farm

by Rory Feek

  Most songs take years to find their way to an artist who’s willing to listen to them, let alone go into a studio and record them, but this one moved pretty quickly from Starbucks to stage. In no more than a couple months, it was on the radio and burning up the charts. It wouldn’t stop climbing until it reached number one (the third song I’d had reach the top spot on Billboard), and it stayed there for a couple of weeks.

  I knew there’d be some extra zeroes on some checks in the mailbox before long, so I brought up the barn to Joey again. “You deserve it,” she said, and that was it. In no time a forty-by-seventy-foot man cave was erected just across our driveway. With three bay doors and a workshop, it was just what I had always wanted and more. We called it “Some Barn” because it was built with the money from “Some Beach.” And to say that it’s been some barn is a huge understatement.

  For a couple years it was just that . . . a barn. A spot where I could tinker on old cars I’d bought for three hundred bucks or a wooden boat a neighbor said I could have if I would just haul it out of their barn. And it was fun. For a while. Life got busy, and all my best intentions never really came to be. The cars never ran, and the boat didn’t float. The junk was still just junk, only there was now more of it.

  Until one day we needed a place to film a Christmas TV special. And to rent a soundstage in Nashville would’ve cost a small fortune. So my buddies and I just pushed all that junk into the far sides of the barn and started filming. It was rinky-dink with a homemade backdrop and borrowed lights, but it was honest, and, in the end, it made all the difference. That TV special we made soon became a weekly television show, then more TV specials, and then dozens of live concerts. And that barn is where it all happened.

  The big red barn on our property cost around sixty thousand to build, and it’s made ten or twenty times that amount back for us. Even more than that, it completely changed the game for us. We went from being a small part of the huge music industry to creating our own unique cottage industry. A place where we could grow a career and a life at the same time.

  And it isn’t just that barn. We kinda did the same thing with the other buildings on the property too. The brick dairy barn where the Blalocks used to milk cows is a full 7.1 surround-sound editing and mixing studio and houses tons of film and camera gear that we use to make the things we make. Before that, it was my songwriting studio and before that, a makeshift gym to work out in.

  The small tool barn by the house is now half garden shed and half henhouse. One side filled with white and buff-rock hens and a Rhode Island red rooster that come in and out of a door that automatically opens and closes with the rising and falling of the sun, and the other half full of hoes and hand spades, baskets and ball jars. All part of Joey’s master plan to keep our lives and bodies as healthy as the soil she planted in.

  Just like all the other buildings and spots here on the farm. When we moved in, it was all random. Empty barns and buildings that came with the old farmhouse that we had our hearts set on buying. When I think about how much has happened in those buildings, and because of those buildings, it’s easy to see that they all are a part of a greater master plan that none of us could see. Only God knew what we were building here. Just as He is the only One who knows where it will lead us in the future.

  Heart Break

  Sometimes our broken hearts just need a break.

  It was spring of 2011. Joey and I had been on the road for the past couple of years, doing multiple radio tours—trying to get radio stations to play our songs but not getting anywhere. In the country music industry, there’s really only one way to move the needle, and that’s by having your songs play on the radio. That’s how people get to hear your music and, ultimately, how they buy albums and what motivates them to come see you in concert. Otherwise, they have no real way to discover you or your music. No radio means no career. That might be changing now with the Internet and YouTube and Spotify in the picture, but at least that’s the way it used to be.

  We were both tired of traveling. Tired of boarding planes that were headed everywhere and not getting anywhere. We missed the farm and our family and friends, and we missed our life. We didn’t want just to sing about living a life in the country, we still wanted to live it. And so it all came to a head that April at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas. Joey and I were worn out. We had won the Top New Artist award the year before and were nominated for Top Country Duo again, but our hearts weren’t in it.

  We checked into the MGM Grand, feeling defeated long before they gave the trophy to someone else. But not just defeated over the progress we’d made, deflated about the process of it all in the first place.

  For the last few months, maybe even the last year or so, we had both started asking the question, what was the point of all this? What does fame and fortune really bring? There we were in the front four rows of another big award show with fifteen thousand fans in the theater and millions watching at home, honored to be there, but really wondering what it’s all about. We had become discouraged. Not just by not having more success but by looking around at people who were having huge success and seeing how empty they were and thinking, there has to be more to it than this . . . realizing that, like all things, the music industry is mostly just a big business, like any other business. And wondering, does this really add up to anything worthwhile? We had come to a place where we couldn’t honestly answer yes.

  There were so many questions in our minds and in our hearts. What were we even there for? What were we trying to accomplish? Become more famous . . . get more money? We both knew we weren’t in it for that. And the sacrifice you had to make didn’t add up to what you received in return, even if you reached all your goals and made a lot of money or were successful. It costs too much.

  And so as we sat there in the audience, holding hands with big smiles on our faces, listening to them say, “And the nominees are . . .” Our hearts were breaking, and inside we were fighting back tears. We didn’t want to be there. We wanted to go home. It was time. Joey looked at me and said, “Are you ready?” and I knew what she was asking.

  “I’ve been ready,” I said. “Just waiting for you.”

  And so when we caught our flight to Nashville the next day, we knew it was a one-way trip. We could feel it in our hearts. We still had a few commitments we’d have to fulfill in the coming months, but, for the most part, we were done. Not necessarily done with the music business but done with doing it the way everyone else does it. Done with trying to fit into a model we never were gonna fit into and done sacrificing everything we loved to make it happen.

  Within a few weeks we let our manager go, and not too long after that, we also parted from the record label we were on. Both painful breakups but inevitable. In a lot of ways I think they were as relieved as we were. They all loved us, and we loved them. That wouldn’t change, but they didn’t know what to do with us, and it wasn’t working for any of us. Joey and I felt immediate relief with those changes even though we had no idea where we’d go from there.

  There had to be a better way. I just believed that there was. And it was my job to find it.

  Farmhouse Christmas

  Sometimes people saying no is God’s way of saying yes.

  Joey spent the summer in the garden doing what she did best. Being present. Coaxing from the soil bright-red tomatoes and purple-hull peas that she had started as seeds in eggshells that came from our chickens. But she was hurting inside, afraid that it was all over. That our moment in the spotlight was gone.

  I remember sitting on the swing outside with her in the evenings and her tears falling and me holding her and telling her it was going to be okay. That we’d find another route to go down. Our own route. I know she had her doubts about whether one was out there or not, but she didn’t doubt me. She knew I would find one if one could be found.

  But those tears were good tears. Tears of relief in some ways. I had seen a lot more tears in the couple years leading up to this. Tears
of frustration and disappointment over what it was, not what we’d accomplished. And so those tears were necessary if we were ever gonna move forward and find our own path.

  While Joey was in the garden, I was in the milk house. Not milking cows, of course . . . we had long ago converted it into a little studio/office where I could work and write songs. A place where I could “go to work” and still be close enough for Joey to ring the dinner bell if it was time for me to come in for lunch. I did what I always do. I prayed about the situation we were in, and I thought about it . . . what other options we might have to grow a career. And somewhere in there the thought occurred to me that television is how our career got started in the first place . . . what if it’s the path that we’re supposed to be taking again now?

  It made sense. I remember John Hamlin, one of the producers of the CMT show Can You Duet? that we had been on originally, saying to us one evening in the middle of a taping . . . “There’s something magical happening here . . . I can’t take my eyes off you two.” And he and I both laughed and joked that, who knows . . . maybe one day we would have our own variety show. It was inconceivable to me at the time and still pretty much was. But stranger things had happened, and I knew that “doing the impossible” was one of God’s favorite tricks.

  And so I came up with an idea to film a TV special for the Christmas album that we had recorded earlier that spring. We’ll just make it at home, I thought. How hard could it be? We’ll call it A Farmhouse Christmas! We had made lots of music videos at home through the years, surely this couldn’t be that different. I also knew that we had a friend named Larry Black who made TV shows himself. We had been guests on some of his shows, and each time the experience left a powerful mark on us. For a few reasons. First off, though it was work . . . it somehow felt like being at home around family. And Larry always started every production with a prayer, either on air or off. Praying for God’s blessing upon the work they were doing and the people involved. Not something you’ll see at most TV tapings you go to, for sure.

  So I told Joey my idea, and she liked it. We had a show that we were booked to play at the Montana Music Ranch in a few weeks, and Larry had a cabin near there in Red Lodge, so I asked if we could come see him while we were out that way. He graciously invited us to stay a few days with him and his wife, Luann, at their cabin.

  Their cabin is huge, nestled near the top of a mountain range. I remember sitting on one of the big decks that overlooks a gorgeous valley below and being nervous to ask Larry, but I did it anyway. I told him that we were wanting to make a Christmas TV special that could be aired starting in November. And I asked him if he would help us make it. He just sat and listened while I talked and then very politely said, “No, I won’t.” I was so disappointed. But then he said, “If you figure out how to make it yourself, I will give you some of our airtime at Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

  That was all I needed to know. Instead of being heartbroken and realizing that I had no idea how to make a TV special, I took it as an opportunity to learn and said, “You’ve got a deal.”

  By early October we were filming the special. We hired some friends we knew who had worked with us on some of the music videos we made, and I moved all the old cars and boat and junk out of the way in the barn, and our handyman, Thomas Travioli, built a little “barn” backdrop to film in front of. We borrowed a half dozen Christmas trees from friends and neighbors and hung lights all around to make it look nice. Then we just turned the cameras on and started filming.

  The first half of the shoot was in the house, around the Christmas tree that Joey had set up (I was super excited because I love Christmas so much, and our tree went up in October that year) and also in the kitchen. We just let the cameras roll while we talked and set up each of the thirteen or fourteen songs that we had recorded and were about to film, performing them in the barn. It was kinda cheesy but mostly endearing.

  We started getting ready at 6:00 a.m. and began filming at 9:00 a.m. Our hope was to be done filming everything by 4:00 p.m. We didn’t even make it out to the barn to start filming the performances until 3:00 p.m. or so. So when Gabe finally yelled “Cut!” for the last time and “It’s a wrap,” we looked at our watches, and it was 5:00 a.m. We had been at it for almost twenty-four hours. We were beyond tired but also elated. When Joey and I climbed into the bed as the sun was coming up, we were both almost giddy. Partly because we were exhausted but also because we had done it. We’d really done it.

  Bib & Buckle

  Some signs are more than signs.

  There is a sign painted on the exterior of our horse barn, just above the stalls, that reads “Bib & Buckle Fest.” It’s been there since late May 2013, and though it now seems random and doesn’t make sense to keep it there, I can’t seem to bring myself to paint over it.

  Most people can’t even see it. You’d have to be out in the cemetery or somewhere in our back field to know it’s there. Ten feet high and probably thirty feet long, it stands out pretty good when I’m sitting on the bench beside my wife’s cross. The horses chewing on hay just below it in a small, dry paddock.

  The barn was originally a tobacco barn, or at least the posts that the horse barn was built on were. It sat down by the road, near where the entrance to the concert hall now is. But by the time I bought the farm, it was ancient, with roof tin missing and trees growing through the sides of it. Once filled floor to ceiling with tobacco grown here on the property, the barn kept the junk we had stored in there for the first five years or so of owning the place. My brother’s old Impala, an engine puller, and a bunch of other things filled the dust-covered floor until we had Thomas disassemble the barn, piece by piece.

  It probably took him two weeks or so to bring it down, keep what was salvageable and burn what wasn’t. The dozen or so twenty-five-foot-tall cedar posts were hauled up the hill to a spot where we had chosen to build a horse barn. We had no real plans to get horses anytime soon, but we needed to use the cedar for something, and since I was always scheming to make my wife’s dreams come true . . . a potential horse barn was what they became.

  A lot has happened in that barn since then. Back when it was only posts and a roof with two large lean-tos on each side, it was where Heidi held her wedding reception. It has also stored mowers and tractors and hay and lumber and a thousand other things. Although one side would eventually become a tool barn and stay that way (it still is), the other side basically became the same thing it was before—a storage shed—only one hundred yards or so farther west and over the ridge, closer to the house.

  But in the late spring of ’13, it found its real purpose.

  We had been having a hometown music festival here for years. Five years to be exact, I think. The next Bib & Buckle Festival was coming up, so we needed a place to hold it and a flat area to advertise it. Joey thought our new horse barn would do nicely, and it did.

  We called it the Bib & Buckle Fest because of my bib overalls, of course, and the belt buckles Joey loved to wear with her jeans and western shirts. Looking back, I think it’s kind of a silly name, but we liked it at the time, and, for the most part, it was easy for folks to remember. It was our way of giving back to the fans who were always so giving to us. After spending countless days each year traveling from state to state and town to town, playing for people in the places they lived, we wanted to invite them to spend a day with us. In the community and at the farm where we live.

  People traveled from all over the country to come. Some from all over the world. Some were young families with lots of kids and babies still in diapers, and some were older folks and couples who’d been married longer than Joey and I’d been alive. People loved it, and so did we.

  We held the first one about ten miles away at our friends Ben and Debora Smith’s farm. It was a year or so after our music career had taken off, and we probably had a couple hundred people show up. There was lots of music and another neighbor, Rex Wharton, cooked the brisket on his smoker, and Marcy Jo’s provided the
sides. We set up a volleyball net and horseshoe pits and lots of fun things for families to do, besides listening to us and some other musician friends that we’d invited to perform that day.

  A year or two later we moved it to our farm, in our front yard, and had five hundred people there. Then the next year a thousand people showed up. When it finally got too big, we moved it into the back field; and the last year we held it, there were close to twenty-five hundred people in lawn chairs, with their feet tapping and their faces covered with sunblock. Being part of a day filled with music, food, and fun. Unfortunately, it rained cats and dogs that last year. Pretty much flooded us out about halfway through. But, in the end, it was our favorite festival of all. The one we remember most.

  After hours of music through the late afternoon . . . around sunset, Joey and I would take the stage. When it was in the front of our farmhouse, we performed on our front porch. The last year it was on a hay wagon parked beside the horse barn. Hay bales and string lights everywhere, it was magical. A sea of people covered the back pasture from the barn to the cemetery. And hundreds of cars parked behind that.

  The sign is beginning to show some signs of age now. But it’s still beautiful. Each letter white with a black shadow, hand painted by Joey and her mama. I had created a festival logo in Photoshop on my computer and projected the image onto the barn in the dark, the night before, and traced the lines with a Sharpie. Joey and June had started in the early morning, the day before the festival, and finished the masterpiece by late evening.

  That was the last festival we had here at the farm. For a few reasons. First off, the following year we took a break from music to have a baby, and the next summer we were fighting cancer and the year after that, fighting the deep heartbreak that comes with losing the one you love.