Western Skies - Hardcover

by Darden Smith (Author), Rodney Crowell (Foreword by)

Part prose, part album, and part photographic essay, Western Skies is singer-songwriter Darden Smith's stunning homage to the mythologies of Texas and companion to his music release of the same name.

Amid a series of road trips across West Texas, Darden Smith--Austin-based musician, author, and creative--found himself writing songs at the wheel and taking Polaroid photographs of the stark and ghostly terrain. Inspired by the spirit of the landscape, Smith scribbled his observations in a notebook and found new life in old lyrics--and between the prose, the music, and the Polaroid images he captured with his camera, Western Skies came vividly to life.

This beautifully designed and collectible book combines everything Smith captured and created during his travels. Features include:

• Dozens of Smith's personal Polaroid images
• Sixteen new essays
• A foreword by Grammy Award-winner Rodney Crowell
• The lyrics of Smith's latest album, also entitled Western Skies
• Link to a free download of the complete Western Skies album with book purchase

The perfect companion piece to his latest album, also titled Western Skies, this arresting travelogue celebrates the sights and sounds of West Texas in a truly immersive and transportive way.

"Darden Smith's new multi-media project Western Skies is big, bold, and beautiful. With perception and vision, an artist's job is to help us all to see more, and to see better. Western Skies does exactly that, it helps us to see these West Texas landscapes through the loving eyes of the artist. There is plenty of love in Darden's new work, and as a result, we are given the chance to see and to love as well. Well done my friend, well done."

- Mary Gauthier

"With Western Skies Darden puts music to the deep mystery, words to vast loneliness and love, and images to the heartache and beauty of the West-thanks for this out-of-this-world road trip of the West."

- Roy Spence, GSD&M

"Sometimes a story requires more than one discipline to get itself told. It's a lucky thing that Western Skies found multi-hyphenate artist Darden Smith and he was up for the job, for he gracefully ushers it into our consciousness with his wonderful ability to notice, question, and show. This is a beautiful project full of shadow and revelation, tenderly shaped into a meditation on what fills the space that exists both within us and around us."

- Allison Moorer, Songwriter and Author

Author Biography

Darden Smith is a singer-songwriter based in Austin whose 30-year career redefines what it means to be a musician. In addition to 15 critically acclaimed albums, Smith continues to break new ground using the craft of songwriting in education, entrepreneurship, and in service to others. He is the founder and creative director of SongwritingWith: Soldiers, a nonprofit that pairs award-winning songwriters with veterans and service members in retreat settings to craft songs about combat and the return home. Darden lives with his wife in Austin, TX. Western Skies is his second book.