PHOTO CREDIT: JASON BOESEL

Perhaps it was those long drives on the road and the need to pick up and move that inspired Hollingsworth to strip down his music to the simplest of components: acoustic guitar and vocals with minimal accompaniment. Whatever the reason, Hollingsworth soon wrote and recorded Life With a Slow Ear, a beautiful and ragged record that plays like the words on a page of a great Southern novel. Life With a Slow Ear sounds like a dusty desert and the honest and direct lyrics feel like an old pair of leather boots. Like the best blues and folk singers, Hollingsworth’s music now, finally, just sounds like home.