Poplar Bluff PD patrolman releases music

After years of writing songs for other artists to record, Jeff Hovis recently recorded three of his own songs that now are available for downloading on more than 80 music streaming services, including iTunes.

“I’ve written for years and had some cuts, artists record some of my bluegrass stuff,” said Hovis, whose day job is as a Poplar Bluff police patrolman, serving as the school resource officer at Three Rivers College.

With a focus on gospel, bluegrass and country, Hovis said, he likes “putting out what I’ve written … the original stuff that I’ve done.”

His publisher was unable to keep him on as a writer due to her illness, Hovis said, basically leaving him without any connections to get his songs to other artists.

Even after Hovis had nowhere to go with his songs, he said, his creative side kept writing more and more songs.

“After thinking about it for a while, I (decided) just to try it myself and get my songs out there with me as the artist rather than sending them to other people,” Hovis explained.

Hovis took three of his original songs — “Take it From a Fool,” “Gone is My Name” and “I’m As American” — to Blue Creek Production at Patton, Missouri.

Blue Creek Production, according to Hovis, is “actually a one-stop shop. They do graphics; they do video.

“ … If you don’t have your stuff copyrighted, they will even take care of that.”

Hovis said Blue Creek works as “your agent to get copyright and put (the recordings) on iTunes” and other sites, such as Spotify and Google Play.

“They said it basically goes to 80 plus sites,” he said. “Anywhere that you download music, it’s going to be on there. They get it on there for you.”

Hovis said he began recording his three songs at the end of last year after saving enough money to do so.

Shawn Wells and Dustin Banister, he said, were his producers and compiled the different instruments needed for the songs.

When a fiddle was needed, Hovis said, the track was sent to Nashville where a fiddle player went into a studio there and recorded his part. Then, it was sent back to Blue Creek, he said.

“We never actually were a full band,” said Hovis, who hopes to generate enough money from the downloads so he can go back into the studio and record more of his original songs.

“That’s my goal … to record as many of my originals as I can,” Hovis explained. “Hopefully, one of these days, I’ll have enough for a full album.”

Hovis said he enjoys putting his music “out there.”

“I would be lying if I said that criticism doesn’t bother me, but, at the end of the day, I’m going to be putting it out there anyway,” Hovis said. “I felt like if I’m comfortable with (the songs) then I’m comfortable for other people to hear it.

“I’m no Paul Simon or anything, but I enjoy a lot of the stuff I write.”

Hovis said it all starts with a “hook” or what he described as a neat phrase or saying, then “you basically build a song around that hook.

“You try to put yourself or imagine a situation where that phrase can be used.”

The line “take it from a fool” was a hook, Hovis said, he had for a very long time.

“ … you end up next to a guy that’s drinking or heartbroken,” Hovis explained. “ … you’re saying, ‘Hey, listen this is no life to live. Trust me, take it from a fool, I’ve been through this. You don’t want to do down this road.’”

“Gone is My Name” was sparked by something, Hovis said, he heard at a seminar about people “not being able to take care of themselves and having to rely on other people.

“When other people are taking care of you, they start thinking of you as an object, instead of a person … gone was my name.”

Hovis said when he heard that hook, “I thought that would make a pretty good country song.

“So, again, I got that phrase and started building around it.”

“‘I’m As American’ … there was a lot of political issues surrounding our American flag being stepped on and burned,” Hovis explained. “A lot of people say America is horrible.

“Yes, America did go through a very, very dark time when it came to slavery, but you have to remember the same America that had slavery and accepted that, there were just as many willing to die and willing to fight to defeat slavery,” Hovis explained. “That’s the America that I’m upholding.”

America, he said, has had horrible things happen, but “there are good men and great people in America.”

Hovis said that is what “I wanted to bring out in ‘I’m As American.’”