Grayson Capps

A literate and impassioned songwriter whose song characters are often caught barely hanging on at the edges of American life, Grayson Capps is a bit like a New Orleans version of Tom Waits, albeit more of a roots rocker in actual musical execution. Capps was born April 17, 1967, in Opelika, AL, the son of a Baptist preacher and an Auburn University student. After his birth, both of his parents ended up being teachers in Brewton, AL. They moved to Fairhope, AL, when Capps was in the seventh grade, and it was there that he developed a lifelong fascination with theater, eventually earning a partial scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans to study acting, graduating with a B.F.A. in 1989. But acting wasn't the only thing Capps studied at Tulane. He also learned to play guitar and joined a band called the House Levellers, who specialized in what the band called "thrash folk." The group signed with Tipitina Records in 1990 when Capps was barely 21 years old, and following a whirlwind and musically quite successful year, Capps left the band, choosing to remain and make his home in New Orleans. He started a new band with John Lawrence called Stavin' Chain and they signed with Thomas Ruf's Germany-based Ruf Records in 1998, releasing a single album, simply called Stavin' Chain, in 1999, before disbanding. Capps met Shainee Gabel, a young director who was filming a documentary called Anthem, and she ended up using several of his songs in the finished film. Capps had told Gabel about an unpublished novel his father, Everett Capps, had written, and once Gabel read it she knew she had to film it. She wrote a screenplay and the end result was the 2004 film A Love Song for Bobby Long, which featured Capps in a bit part and also used four of his songs as part of the...