You can’t separate Andy Whatley’s music from his life because one wouldn’t be the same without the other. Perhaps that’s because music was encoded in his DNA, just like the rich Alabama soil. Or maybe it’s because his sound was shaped from years paying his musical dues, traveling in a van to perform for fans hungering for honesty over polish.

But it’s definitely because Whatley has lived a life in full, raising five children with his wife, earning a master’s degree in sports management and serving as a high school football coach and athletic director for 16 years. Whatley is the antithesis of most frontmen: rather than seeking the spotlight, he has put others first, devoting his life to helping others, meeting his family’s needs and adhering to his values of discipline, responsibility and service. He’s all grit and no glamour.

These detours have created his unique guitar-driven music, a blend of Southern rock and blues-driven Americana. He’s lived the life of which he writes, the same kind of life that his audience has led. He’s felt the pressures of family, money, responsibilities, expectations, and dreams, and that’s the well in which he draws to write his songs.

That’s what led award-winning country singer/songwriter Jamey Johnson, a fellow Alabama native, to sign Whatley to his Big Gassed Records and release four albums--Come Back Home, Knock off the Dirt, Fighter, and most recently, Call It What You Want.

In Call It What You Want, Whatley achieves the sound that he’s been working towards since his first country influenced album. “It’s where I wanted to end up,” he says of his latest album, referring to his secret ingredients of Southern blues, Delta blues, and European Guitarist-inspired blues.

His lyrics have also gained depth and insights as the years have gone by. “At first, you are just having fun writing stuff,” he says. “Then you think, I really could have said something there. Some people say something and some say it without saying it. I do both approaches.

“When my grandchildren find it on some digital platform one day, they will be able to hear something I’m trying to say.

Whatley and his two siblings were raised in Montgomery by their father, who worked in the beef industry for more than four decades, and his mother, who was a teacher. His father listened to Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, as well as Creedance Clearwater Revival and The Band. As teens, he and his brother, Chris, discovered the progressive music of Yes, Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.Whatley began playing his father’s guitar at age 12 and two years later, his older brother used his first paycheck to buy him an electric guitar. The Whatley boys, their dad, and a drummer they recruited soon began playing locally.

For most of his life, he has merged music with other pursuits. He played quarterback at Marantha University in Wisconsin. “I would get in trouble for leaving and going to the local guitar store and jamming.” He formed a band with Chris called Look East, which had a regional following. Whatley married in 1991 and performed music regularly until they had their first child.

He worked for a family meat company and decided to purchase it, a decision that limited his time for music as the business grew. After running his company for eight years, he switched to coaching football, which he’s done for more than 15 years. Whatley has a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Ashford University and a master’s degree in sports management from Liberty University.

“We had a coaches’ meeting and were breaking down the film,” he says. “Dad called and said, ‘We are down here at Jamey’s Benefit show. They are talking about us getting up there and singing ‘Seven Bridges Road.’ Can you do it?” He cut the meeting short, made it to the venue, strapped on the acoustic guitar he was handed and took the stage. “I walked off and saw Jamey for the first time since childhood,” he says. “I said, ‘Thanks! That was fun!’ So music came back around and I started writing songs again.”

A label deal soon followed, and now music is a third-generation family affair, with his sons writing, performing and recording with him.

The hard-hitting “Silver-Toned Master” is about the Sears guitar people purchased when he was growing up when they couldn’t afford a Fender or Gibson. ”My dad had one and I had one,” he says. “I found it by the side of the road and fixed it up. Everybody had one in the South.”

“That’s Us” captures the daily realities of a long-term relationship: “It’s like, you have peaks and you have the valleys, but at the end of the day- that’s us.’” The audience’s favorite song may be “I Will Be There,” which is “a sad story, with some guy quaking over somebody that he would sell his heart for.

Free, he says, “is my personal song. When you're middle-aged and you have a degree and a really good job and you say, ‘I’m going to walk away from this career and I’m going into the music business ’ people say, ‘What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?’ This song is a ‘you “stay in your lane and I’ll stay in mine”’ type of statement. 

There are lyrics in Free like, ‘At least I'm still trying.’ to hold my head up, to make my own luck” embodies the notion of a personal direction