Kurt Lee Wheeler: Bringing It All Back Home
- Stephen Pitalo
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Lathemtown, a small, unincorporated community in North Georgia, is the kind of place where cows outnumber streetlights, and where people grow up knowing every neighbor by name.
This is the place that shaped singer-songwriter Kurt Lee Wheeler — first as the son of a cattleman and homemaker, then as a musician who would one day return to its soil in search of the stories he left behind. When Wheeler talks about his hometown, his voice settles into an easy rhythm, the kind that comes from a lifetime of telling certain stories without ever needing to embellish them. This landscape, these people, and the quiet struggles folded into their days, form the spine of Wheeler’s new album Lathemtown. It is his most personal work yet.
“We're about 35 miles north of Atlanta,” Wheeler says, “and this is an agricultural community for the most part. I grew up in the cattle business and hog business, and there was nothing else to do but to play football and baseball, and fish.” He estimates the community’s population at only a couple of thousand people when he was growing up. “I mean, our elementary school had 200 students in it – first through eighth grade.”
Growing up in Lathemtown also gave Wheeler the opportunity to observe the resilience of people weathering hardship with quiet dignity. The stories passed down by his parents and grandparents, the tragedies stitched into the fabric of his family, and the lessons learned by watching others endure, became the foundation for his songwriting.
“My mom and dad are still alive, and my grandparents' land just finally sold last year,” Wheeler said, noting that several generations of his family grew up in Lathemtown.
Those memories sat dormant for decades before reemerging in the form of melodies and narrative threads, sometimes in dreams, sometimes arriving all at once after days of fasting and reflection. “I do a lot of fasting,” Wheeler explains. “I'd just come out of an 11-day fast, and I think I wrote two or three of these songs one morning, sitting at the table.”
He’s been making records since the early ’90s, but Lathemtown marks a turning point — an album written from a deeper place, shaped by age, distance, and a sharpened sense of what matters. Wheeler’s songs feel lived-in, rooted in his decades of experience as a teacher, father, pastor, military veteran, and storyteller. He claims he did not set out to write a concept album; instead, the pieces surfaced on their own, tapping him on the shoulder until he followed.
“Every album I've ever done meant more than the last one,” he reflects. “But because of family,and home, and going back, this album -- beyond the shadow of a doubt -- means more to me than any other.”
New textures and depth
Wheeler’s earliest musical inspiration came from many directions, including classic southern rock, alternative rock, and college radio from the ’80s and ’90s. His first album, Bama Motel(1992), offered hints of these influences, even while he was still finding his own voice.
“Growing up, my biggest influences would've been The Monkees, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Deep Purple, probably in that order,” he says, “and Edgar Winter’s album Shock Treatment. I actually would like to cover some Monkees songs at some point.”
The personal depth of Lathemtown is also attributable to Wheeler’s experience as a father. He says that watching his son struggle, adapt, and ultimately carve out his own path provided great inspiration for the song “Portland.”
“You'd think it's about losing a lover, but it's really about a father and a son, and having to trust him with the process,” Wheeler reflects. “My son decided to move out to Portland, and I was very proud of him. That was a bold move. We packed up that Subaru and he took off across the country.”
VIDEO:
Kurt Lee Wheeler, “Portland”
Wheeler’s collaborators on Lathemtown—producer and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Partin, along with Aaron Ramsey on banjo and mando, guitarist Jake Stargel, and John Rice on fiddle—helped translate the songs into their final form. Their bluegrass acumen brought new textures and depth to Wheeler’s project.
Covers often find their way into Wheeler’s catalog, but always with intention, and this recording is no exception. His version of the Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These” grew out of the sudden death of a close friend, and the emotions that followed. His take on Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” came from long-standing admiration of the tune, and a realization that its ethereal feel aligned perfectly with his own sensibilities. Rather than imitate, he reshapes these songs into meditations that carry his own fingerprint.
“That song is haunting,” Wheeler said of the Isaak tune. “It's spiritually otherworldly. It's almost cult-like in its ability to grab hold of my soul. It's three chords played 44 times. It violates every songwriting principle. I thought we could keep the same melody and add a D major 7, and ended up having an Alison Krauss kind of vibe to it.”
VIDEO:
“Wicked Game” covered by Kurt Lee Wheeler
Whispers between the lines
The most enduring lessons come from home. Wheeler talks often about his father—a cattleman with a gift for conversation, a deep love of the earth, and a steady generosity that left a lasting imprint on an impressionable son. Those qualities continue to guide Wheeler through his life and music.
“My dad is the most gracious, generous man I've met,” he says. “He loves cattle, he loves the earth, he loves nature, he loves people. I learned how to give by watching my mom and dad give, sacrificially, sometimes out of their own deficits.”
As for what he hopes listeners take away from Lathemtown, Wheeler speaks with quiet honesty. The album is not an attempt at grandeur, or a bid for reinvention. It is an invitation to sit with emotion—his, and perhaps our own—and find a measure of solace or recognition in the stories.
“There are things I say and whisper between the lines,” he says. “People might find themselves in there and go, ‘Oh, okay. I get that.’” He’s glad his music serves as a balm. “If listeners can find a little respite for their journey, or if they can touch loss in a way that helps them identify better with it, that's what I hope.”
Visit Kurt Lee Wheeler online at http://www.kurtleewheelermusic.com.
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