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On Nov. 20, 1925  John R. Hunter was born into the mean streets of
Birmingham, Alabama.

His father essentially abandoned John and his mother, and they struggled
to survive.  At the age of eight John learned that his father had died, and
this news only served to further harden the child against a world that was
still reeling from the great depression and although he rarely spoke of this
time in his life, I can remember very vividly his description of how he and
his mother shared a single slice of bread many times for the entire day's
rations.

By the time John’s mother decided the two would move north 140 miles to a
small town in southern Tennessee, John was 16 yrs old, skinny as a rail,
but mean as a snake, and like most 16 year olds in any time, very unprepared
for the changes coming.  First, the changes from bustling streets to dairy farms
and tobacco fields, from knife fights to friendly folks and saw mills, and a girl, oh,
what a girl.

But the biggest change coming soon for John would be due to a man named
Adolf Hitler. On Nov. 7, 1927, Helen Lee Earl Largen was born into the home
of the Lincoln County Sherriff and his wife. The couple operated a dairy farm
in Fayetteville Tennessee and Frank kept the peace.  Helen grew up believing
hard work was a natural part of life and she had never changed her habits
when she passed away at the age of 78.

But shortly after he returned from World War II on Nov. 25, 1947 she wed
the man from Birmingham, she had met at the skating rink and fell in love
with some six years prior, who upon his honorable discharge from the Navy
had quickly returned to ask the Sherriff for his daughter’s hand.

The couple started their family and in 1963 after having moved to
Muscle Shoals Alabama, Helen gave birth to their fourth and final son. 
He was named Patrick Wayne Hunter.  I’m that man and this is my story.

Why are the preceding two paragraphs relevant to my autobiography?
Because, this very moment, as I type these words, I am. I am at a specific
point in time, a specific point in my life.  For the very first time in my life
I am at the point of being 100% certain of where I want to go.  But, in
order to understand or appreciate that, one must first know where
I’ve been.

At the age of six, I was fascinated by my brother Larry.  He was 10
years my senior and was the first drummer in his high school marching
band. He was also already playing in a local pop band that gigged regularly
in the Shoals area, as well as many of the nightclubs on the Alabama/Tennessee
line.  Larry and I were extremely close at this time and he encouraged
my attempts to memorize and belt out the lyrics from many of the songs
he spent hours practicing.  By the age of eight my singing talent had caught
the attention of many, including my dad.  For the next 10 years he would
often tell me to stop wasting my time.

I was making my own way in the world, right? Looking back on
that confused and introverted teenager is seldom pleasant and it
makes one fully understand the old adage of hindsight being 20/20.
I spent the bulk of my high school years selling dope, fighting anyone
that was willing, and wishing I was somewhere else, virtually every
second wishing I was somewhere else. But, where? Doing What?
With Whom?

The pattern of learned behavior, and hopeless contemplation on
the human animal and why we are here and what we should do
took me on a very diversified journey over the next 25 years and
although music was always in my heart it was seldom on my mind. 
I did a lot of things musical, but always like an afterthought,
something to help me unwind or get me through the day, like a hobby,
a passionate hobby.

I wrote my first song at the age of 16 and pitched it to a local studio.
They said it’s really good and we’d like you to try to write some more
stuff and bring it over. But always the voice - don’t waste your time,
get a trade, you need security.

This type of thinking would lead me down a number of different
career paths and through three marriage, and while everyone looked
on and thought - when is Pat going to do something with his music?
Why hasn’t Pat made it in the music business? And while it appeared to
everyone, including me, that I had wasted my youth and given up any
chance I would ever have to succeed in the music business, something
was happening that no one could figure.   I was writing. Everyday I was
writing. Writing lyrics,  writing riffs, writing songs.

People very close to me would ask, have you written any new songs lately?
Sure, I would reply, I write every day.  For years the same questions, and
the same answer. In 1998 my house burned to the ground and a filing cabinet
containing over 1200 songs went up in smoke.  I didn’t even have those
songs down in any other tangible form. You see, for most of my life I have
been an anachronism, a buffalo if not a dinosaur.   But life takes over and
finally a man realizes technology is not always a bad thing. Finally after
swinging a hammer, wielding a chainsaw, a paintbrush, a pick, a shovel,
I learned at the age of 38, how to turn on a computer.

I am now 44 years old and I have gone from labor to management and
sales in six short years from struggling to survive to six figures achieved
many times in as short a span as 6 months due to a windfall situation
from chasing a hail storm and adjusting claims or selling roofing.  

But although life has taught me many things, the love of money is not
one of them. I view money and the things it buys very much as a
stumbling block for most but simply a means to an end for me.  I have a
biological daughter that will start her senior year in high school in August
and a stepdaughter that has started a family.  Thus my financial obligations
to others are nearing an end.

I am at a point in life where without always being totally aware of where
my path was leading me, I am now certain that one step led to another
with a purpose, a purpose many would deem ridiculous and far fetched.
You see, I realize I haven’t mentioned anything about my actual
experience in the music industry yet.  That is because it is very limited
when you get down to it. I feel that a brief explanation will synopsize
that part of this story.

I have played nightclubs four nights a week for months at a time; I have
laid my guitar down for up to six months at a time.  I have played
songwriting showcases in Nashville, Muscle Shoals and am traveling to
Austin, Texas this week and will play one there. I have had publishers
sign my material, had songs placed on hold by major label artists. I played
on The John Boy and Billy Show.  I played on a local television show for
a year. I went in a studio in Muscle Shoals in 2000 and again in 2001
and cut two full production albums.

But always that voice, not my father's voice, my voice, the little voice
inside that had learned at an early age to say don’t waste your time,
you’ll never amount to anything with this, this industry is far
too hard to break into, so what if lots of people really like what you’re
doing, so what if people you’ve never met before say some of your
songs should be high on the charts. I am the little voice and I say
you should drive a nail, I say you should paint a wall; I say you
should sell a roof, this is how you will eat and keep a roof over
your head.

To anyone reading this who has never met me, I am sure you see a
pattern of a man who has always wanted music but has always been
afraid of what it takes to make it in the industry, always been afraid of
sacrificing everything to be a songwriter and I believe you would be correct.
However, one thing I have always known deep inside, is there were two
voices.  As a young man the voice that said I can't was loud and strong,
but as I’ve gotten older a very faint voice that could start to be heard
has grown in volume, strength and confidence. 

That voice says YOU CAN, YOU WILL, YOU MUST.

Can what?

Will what?

Must what?

I can say that life, death, wins, losses has taught me that any day
above ground beats ten below.  I will write about it in my songs till
they throw dirt on me.  I must capture this in a tangible form.

You see I heard a famous baseball player once say in an interview
when asked about his recent slump and his potential future,
"Baseball’s what I do, its not who I am."  I immediately replied to
the television, "Carpentry’s what I do, songwriting’s who I am."

I write on average 150 songs per year.  I have finally began to
capture most of these in a digital format with simple 2 track work
tapes on a Zoom. But the second most overwhelming experience
I have had in my life was helping the engineer in 2000 and 2001
with my first two albums. 

I didn’t know anything about what we were doing but I sure knew
I liked it. I tried to tell myself, leave the recording to an engineer, just
write and one day someone will cut one of your songs, and then maybe
you can learn to record.

I am tired of waiting, I don’t care if anyone cuts one of my songs and
I have every intention of cutting, releasing and touring many of them
MYSELF! I also have every intention of learning to record as well as I
do anything else and I will take a studio on wheels to areas where
aspiring artists don’t have an opportunity to record, and also to school
programs and underprivileged areas, to show kids what they can do,
how they can sound and try to encourage a voice inside them
to say they CAN, WILL, MUST.

I have recently been richly rewarded with the reacquaintance of a
childhood peer.  Her life and mine have taken very different paths
through the years, and when we started dating this past December
it was amazing how much we both had changed, but even more
amazing how much we had in common. 

She loves music, I think as much as I, and even though she had
never thought of writing a song in her 46 years, after watching me
write so much morning after morning before work I asked her once
what she thought about the new musical idea I had.  Fifteen minutes
later we had finished the lyrics to arguably one of the best songs I have
been a part of in my 28 years of writing.

We recently demoed that song in Nashville in a wonderful studio, and
again I had that feeling, watching that engineer do his job.  Again, I had
no idea what he was doing, but this time I stopped and said, this is
ridiculous, I work on a computer everyday, I am online in my truck,
printing off estimates I’ve written many times for hundreds of thousands
of dollars, conducting business, you know, business for money right?

Mary and I have purchased commercial property in Muscle Shoals where
she lives and we are going to turn it into a recording studio.  We are going
to focus on our publishing companies first and eventually start our own
label, then we will build the project studio on wheels.  We also plan to
put in a full video studio eventually and will shoot music videos as well as
produce a cooking show.  I think you’ve noticed a huge shift of focus and
choice of words in this paragraph about things that are happening, are
going to happen. That’s because the voice says I CAN, I WILL, I MUST.

I am listening.

My initial look at the GetAMentor program instantly made me feel good,
because I knew that I was seeing an enterprise that made sense, an
enterprise that was obviously being run by people who are sincere and care
about what they do and why they do it. I hope sincerely that you will consider me
for the program and I trust that there is someone in Nashville that would enjoy
the opportunity to teach someone how to do something that wants to learn
because it will become part of who they are, not what they do.

Thanks,

Patrick W. Hunter

P.S. You can see Patrick at www.myspace.com/patrickhuntermusic