Posts by Steve Wildsmith
An ‘Outsider’ no more: House of Pain’s Danny Boy O’Connor finds his calling
In 2018, Danny Boy O’Connor appeared in the teaser trailer for PBS’ “Great American Read.” Danny Boy O’Connor was 13 years old the first time he saw “The Outsiders,” and the film has stayed with him ever since. Growing up, O’Connor told The Ties That Bind Us recently, life was a series of one hard…
Read MoreThe unbroken circle: Country royalty Carlene Carter always finds her way back to the light
Courtesy of Marc Hauser Carlene Carter knows full well that the seeds of recovery get planted deep. A whole lot of addicts and alcoholics who find their way to treatment and self-help groups and programs may not stay clean and sober the first time, or the second, or the tenth, for that matter. But the…
Read MoreOn heartrending new song, David Haerle ponders a life lost to addiction
When alcoholism darkened the doorways of his family home, it spared singer-songwriter David Haerle. It found his father, who got sober in 1967. It claimed his mother, who would find recovery later in her life. And it wrapped its thorny tendrils around his brother, Christian, a brilliant man who died suddenly in 2019. A Los…
Read MoreAlt-country songwriter Kenny Roby dynamites ‘The Reservoir’ of reservations
When singer-songwriter Kenny Roby first got sober back in 2004, it was a 12 Step self-help group that put him on a path of personal and artistic renewal. Two years later, he released the most critically acclaimed album of his solo career, “The Mercy Filter,” a record that detailed his sober journey in cryptic ponderings…
Read MoreOne of the best ‘Choices’ singer-songwriter Lucy Spraggan ever made: getting ‘Sober’
One minute in, you see it: her lip starts to quiver, and Lucy Spraggan fights to hold back a flood of tears. By minute 2, she struggles to get through the chorus — “I’ve had all the time I need to think it over, I’ve gotta be sober” — chest heaving, her face a rictus…
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