By Lee Hurley
It had been a busy month for Elliott Callaway, who lives in Los Angeles, a mere 2,100 miles from his hometown of Mountain Brook.
The 33-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist had already played 10 gigs in August with a week left to go.
“I’ll play any gig as long as it seems appealing,” Callaway said. “I’ve played senior living facilities, you know just play an hour of Hank Williams and that kind of stuff. I just played this brewery in Camarillo. It was packed. That’s a good opportunity to get some more fans.”
Callaway’s fans come to hear him play his own songs and cover songs. They come to hear him play solo and with a band called Honey and the Flies. And they come to hear him in the name of Elliott Callaway and Friends, under which musicians rotate based on availability.
“The last two months for me have been the best two months of my life musically,” Callaway said.
The road to happiness has been winding, but he sees it all as a journey to get him to where he is supposed to be.
Elliott Callaway and his four siblings – Lewis, Keelyn, John and Sally – grew up in Mountain Brook, went off the college and now have lives of their own. Callaway’s dad Jack, a CFO, and his mom Mary, a nurse, had their hands full with four boys. It was Elliott’s younger brother, Lewis, who became the guitar slinger first.
“It was crazy how good Lewis got,” Elliott Callaway said. “Conrad Rafield had them in a band called Silent Mr. Nielsen and he would rip these solos and just improvise. It actually deterred me when I was younger because I was kind of like, I guess he’s the guitar player in the family.”
Yet Callaway had a secret weapon – his voice.
“I knew I could sing even in fourth grade at Crestline. They had me sing a solo for “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” he laughed. While school was never Callaway’s thing, he excelled in concert choir, and he made it through the University of Alabama majoring in ethnomusicology while taking music theory and composition.
In Praise of Delusion
Ask Callaway how he had the foresight to pursue music professionally and he offers up one word: delusion.
“I didn’t have the proper skill set to pursue it. And I had massive anxiety about putting myself out there,” he said.
So, Callaway moved back home and went to work in sales. Later, he was offered a job in southern California selling construction products.
“Even though I wasn’t crazy about the job it felt like an adventure,” he said.
It was Callaway’s experience in sales that helped him realize that he could pursue music without fear.
“My sales job was almost entirely about people telling me no or me getting excited about something happening and then it falling through. It made me realize that in order to make good things happen, you have to be willing to risk rejection,” Callaway said.
One night, Callaway went to an open mic in a bar, but he left soon afterward. Four months later, he had gotten his repertoire up along with his courage and he tried again.
“I went to the same bar and played with three or four amazing musicians, and they said, ‘Let’s hang out.’ They lived around the corner, and we literally played music all night. I was like, man, I think I found my band.”
‘Hank’
In January 2023, Callaway released his debut nine-song album and called it “Hank.”
Asked why the name Hank, Callaway said, “My first name is Henry and my mom refused to let me go by that because she thought everyone would start calling me Hank.”
Callaway’s sense of humor can be found on the track called “Drivin’:”
“Tucson, Arizona baby, here I come,
40 miles back she told me, we were done,
So I shot her at a truck stop, off the 41
and just kept Drivin’…”
“I had been writing songs over a two- to three-year period, but then in 2022 I began writing with more focus and consistency and before I knew it, I had enough songs for a record.”
By this time, Callaway had met Tim Hall, who helped engineer and produce the songs at his home studio in Westlake Village.
“We’d go down rabbit holes and have to turn around and edit things out that didn’t work,” he said.
Callaway invited musicians he had met through the local scene to play on several tracks.
“I feel like we found a sound that portrays the tone of the songs,” Callaway said.
Recently, Callaway played a showcase of his originals before a packed audience.
“The room was dead silent. I mean, literally, you could hear a pin drop. I made the joke on stage, ‘This is a lot different than playing Margaritaville.’ They got my music and understood the lyrics and they laughed at the right times. It felt pretty awesome.”
More information about Callaway and his music can be found at elliottcallawaymusic.com.
