Here is a definition straight from Google’s AI. Duality: The state of an entity containing two distinct, often opposite, aspects or elements. It represents a division into two, such as light/dark, good/evil, or wave/particle, highlighting contrast, complementarity, or a twofold nature in philosophy, physics, and mathematics. Now, keep this part in the back of your mind: duality implies a “both/and” scenario rather than just “either/or,” emphasizing that opposing forces can coexist. 

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Beauty and Horror

Grayson Capps grew up in Brewton, Alabama. His parents were school teachers. His father, a deeply spiritual man, was a Baptist preacher for a period of time before he became disillusioned with the church. “He was a Baptist preacher for enough time to know that he didn’t want to do that, long enough to realize it was all a show.” He remained “deeply focused on theology, but looking at it differently,” Grayson said. 

After leaving the church, his father studied many of the world’s religions and philosophies. All of which were imparted to Grayson at a young age. “His true thing was to want to help people, and to help himself and to find God,” Grayson said. 

Grayson’s father’s friends were equally influential. They were a rowdy bunch that sought truth in art and literature, and often in the bottom of the whiskey bottle. His father would have parties on the weekends where he and his friends would “drink and tell lies, praise Flannery O’Connor, smoke cigarettes and philosophize,” which is a line from ‘A Love Song For Bobby Long’ written by Grayson. 

“Having those guys running around the house reciting Shakespeare, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Welty, and singing songs, that was my formative shit,” Grayson told me. Of particular influence was the aforementioned Bobby Long. Grayson has told the story of his father waking him up at 4 am to watch Bobby Long be sick from a night of drinking, to show him the other side of the coin. “I had the realization early on of beauty and the horror of it. It’s the things that make you who you are.”

Grayson went on to study theater at Tulane University. His father had an unpublished novel about Bobby Long, which Grayson was instrumental in having produced into a feature film starring John Travolta and Scarlett Johansson. While at Tulane, Grayson joined a band called the House Levelers, and he has been playing music and writing songs ever since. He has produced 9 albums and is widely respected within the industry. His latest album, Heartbreak, Misery, and Death (its counterpart being the joy that can come from listening to and singing sad songs), is a compilation of songs he grew up listening to with his father and friends.

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NASA and Tommy Tuberville

“I love being from Alabama…because you have the extremes, you have NASA, and you have Tommy Tuberville. I mean, you’ve got some of the best in the world, and some of the worst in the world.” Grayson lived in New Orleans for 20 years before moving to Fairhope, via Nashville, about 15 years ago. He left New Orleans after Katrina and moved back to Alabama for family matters. “I spent 20 years in New Orleans, where I was a minority. And Fairhope is just kind of, homogenous, you know.” 

His family matters have been settled, and his kids have moved off and are doing well. Grayson said he has considered moving back to New Orleans, or some other place more eclectic, but “I kind of like being in a place where I am not preaching to the choir, you know, where I can kind of offer the cultural diversity.” 

Still, Grayson says he feels like a black sheep here. “What I do is not typical of Lower Alabama. I’m doing original songs and I kind of push the envelope with stuff, but I try not to be overtly challenging.” Grayson has had people walk out of his local performances over his political statements, which he has never shied away from. 

“George Bush, George Bush, you’re a lying hypocrite” is a line from one of his post-Katrina ballads. He mentions a line from his latest single that has not sat well with some: “God, guts, and glory are what make this country great; I’m thinking God, guts, and glory are the very words that make men hate.” 

I don’t believe Grayson aims to be challenging at all. He does not see his songwriting as an act of resistance to the Mobile Bay milieu; rather, he hopes to be a “beacon of light” for like-minded people. “That’s the very reason I feel like I kind of belong here, because (they) need me here.” For instance, J.D. Crowe, the political cartoonist and good friend of Grayson’s, “who is making his statement, relies on me to be here.”

Despite feeling like he is “not like everyone else in the trailer park,” Grayson is a local fixture. He performs regularly in the Bay Area. He considers Callaghan’s Irish Social Club in Mobile, a “home away from home,” and was one of the first musical acts to play there. He leads a Joe Cain Day second line from Callaghan’s every year, where he dresses as Ol’ Slack and performs. He and his friend Cathe Steele started a Spring and Fall concert series in Baldwin County called the Frog Pond, where musicians trade songs and guests bring a covered dish for a potluck dinner. The Frog Pond is in its 16th year this year and has gotten international recognition. 

Further, Grayson recorded his last album and is currently working on another with Ryan Avinger at Dauphin Street Sound, a recording studio in downtown Mobile, “because I want to support the local thing.” Grayson’s wife is a four-time Grammy Award-winning sound engineer and is a source of knowledge for the budding studio as well. “She wants them to succeed, too,” Grayson told me. Further still, he is featuring local talent Simone French on his latest album. 

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Soul and Math

“Cutting an album is all about finding the perfect marriage between soul and math,” Grayson told me, “but it also has to be true. There are a thousand ways to tell a lie, but only one way to tell the truth. So, fortunately, most of the songs that I sing are easy, because they’re truthful.” 

The vast majority of Grayson’s songs are not political; they are ethereal. Grayson has continued his father’s work and wants to share what he has found to be true in the world. “I believe in a force that unifies us, that we are all connected, and it’s kind of what motivates me to perform, because I’m not simply entertaining, I’m trying to offer hope, and a message, and to make the world a better place.” 

Grayson thinks deeply about these notions. He says, “It is what interests me, and what I throw into songs, and I try not to be too overt.” Overt he is not, he slips in his little bits of wisdom in songs about street performers and trash collectors, graveyards and dive bars.

Grayson quoted a couple of lines from a song on his new album, 

“The weight of the world is loosening, the mosquitoes are biting on my arm, it’s twilight here on the farm, I open the first beer of the day, and transition to a different place, the weight of the world is loosening.” 

Then he said thoughtfully, “It’s a fragile walk; some people use the adage of walking the razor’s edge of how to navigate this life.” Between what is true and false, I ask, “between whatever the opposites are… things are not black and white, hot and cold, good and evil.” He said, “I really do believe that if there is a higher power, it’s not one thing. It’s the relationship of things. That’s the reciprocating energy…What causes us to be alive are opposing forces.”