Owsley

William Reese Owsley III (March 6, 1966 – April 30, 2010), known professionally as Owsley, was an American singer and songwriter.

His two solo albums won critical acclaim, and his debut album was nominated for a Grammy Award, as was the song "Threaten Me With Heaven".

Owsley was also a record producer, a recording engineer, and the guitarist in Amy Grant's touring band.

Owsley was born and raised in Anniston, Alabama, in a musical household.

His father was the drum major of the Million Dollar Band, the marching band of the University of Alabama; his mother was a singer and stage actress; his sister was a classically trained pianist, and his brother was a rock guitarist,.

Owsley graduated from the Rectory School and attended the Blue Ridge School.

Nashville music executive Scott Siman encouraged Owsley to pursue his own writing and performing, which is why he declined an offer by Amy Grant in the late 1980s to become her guitarist.

Together with Millard Powers, he founded the power pop band The Semantics, which included Jody Spence and Ringo Starr's son, Zak Starkey.

They were signed to Geffen Records by John Kalodner.

He was a guitarist and singer in the Southeastern rock club band Baghdad in the mid-80s that played both covers and original work, before moving to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1987.

Owsley started playing guitar at age nine.

He was a fan of Kiss and of Todd Rundgren, but mostly practiced Eddie Van Halen and Steve Morse licks note-for-note.

With his father's mentorship, he played snare drum in the Anniston High School marching band, whilst continuing his passion for guitar, playing in his high school jazz band and in top-40 cover bands at local venues.

With his brother, he would play in the band Stormfront.

The songs he started writing himself were more in the style of The Beatles.

As a guitarist, he also cited influences such as Chet Atkins, Jimi Hendrix and Robert Johnson.

Prior to developing his own band and solo work, he was added to the band of Judson Spence, appeared in his various videos on MTV, and was part of Spence's groundbreaking Nashville showcases that landed him 14 label offers.

During the 1990s, he among others worked with Vince Gill, Michael W. Smith, Chris Rodriguez, dc Talk (for whom he also produced), the Neville Brothers, Vanessa L. Williams, and Wynonna.

With the money he earned working with Amy Grant and Shania Twain, he bought a house in Green Hills, Tennessee, and in it built a home recording studio.

The album would be labeled one of the best pop records of the 1990s.

During the ensuing tour, he among others joined the Pat McGee Band and Fountains of Wayne, whose bassist Adam Schlesinger Owsley recorded with in later years.

The band recorded an album entitled Powerbill in 1993, which was never released in the U.S for being "too pop for alternative and too alternative for pop."

Amy Grant turned out to have heard tapes of The Semantics and she contacted Owsley in 1994 to let him know how much she liked it, and to ask him to join her as her guitarist on the House of Love tour.

Owsley would subsequently hold the position of tour guitarist for 16 years, until his death.

He would later also co-write and record various songs with her.

Through his work with producer Mutt Lange, Owsley was introduced to Shania Twain.

Over the years, he would tour with her as guitarist and harmony singer, with appearances on many national television shows and awards programs.

Owsley went on to work with many mainstream and Christian artists, often in the country genre.

It eventually got distributed in Japan in 1996.

Fine-tuning the album under the tutelage of producer and manager Peter Asher for four years taught him much about the production process and about management.

Suddenly being dropped from the label left the band members destitute and broke.

In 1998, it led to the release of his self-titled solo album distributed by Not Lame Recordings.

It was co-produced by Millard Powers and Jeff Balding.

Doug Morris of Universal Music Group picked it and proposed the album to be rerecorded, but Owsley insisted that it simply needed to be remixed by either Tom Lord-Alge, Bob Clearmountain or Andy Wallace.

Tom Lord-Alge signed on, together with J.R. McNeely.

The eponymous album Owsley got re-released on March 23, 1999, under Giant Records.

Many of the songs on the album are about Anniston, Alabama, where he was born and lived until he was 21, and his longing for the town.

With the first single off the album being "Coming Up Roses", Owsley sent the entire staff of Giant a red rose and a Valentine's Day card, expressing his hopes that things were "coming up roses" for all.

The single didn't catch on, but "I'm Alright" later did score a minor hit.

Recorded almost entirely on a vintage Studer A-80 (2-inch, 16-track of which one defective ) tape machine in his home studio on Hobbs Road in Nashville, Tennessee, it garnered him a Grammy Award nomination for Best Engineered Album.