 It's time for Mountain Music, presented by Mountain Music Exchange, the heart of music in the mountains. Welcome to Mountain Music. Today we're featuring Presence Coordinator Troy Burchett. Take a listen. Although Troy's musical roots are buried in gospel music, his musical influences have varied throughout his life. My father was a pastor of a church, and I was brought up playing music, singing in churches for many years. Churches, and benefits, tent meetings, so I did a lot of gospel music. I got into college some years ago, and tried out for a college group called The Big Sandy Singers. It was held by Laura Ford Hall, the director, and Clayton Case from the Mountain Art Center, Tim Cooley. And they are like mentors to me. They taught me so much about how to do music and perform. We traveled to all types of events, and I just loved it, I enjoyed it so much. Singing, writing, and performing is not only therapeutic for Troy, but for everyone within hearing distance. To me, songwriting is like telling stories. I try to write about my personal life, what I've experienced, what I've lived, what I've seen around me. Like, recently I wrote a song about my father's death, cancer, and it was a therapy to me, because it was hard for me to deal with that. But also, when I see it touch people's hearts, when I see someone come up to me and tell me how much they enjoy it, how much it moved them, that makes me feel like I've accomplished something in my life. I was born legally blind, so for me, some of the things that most people take for granted are a challenge, you know, getting around and so on and so forth. So when I play music, I can let go of all that, and I can live in that song for that few minutes. I can become that person. So it's like an escape in a ways. It is therapy, it really is. Sometimes one can say things in a song that they don't know how to say any other way. It's called Live to Love You, and I wrote about my girlfriend. She has been an inspiration to me, and she has helped me tremendously, and I'm very grateful for that. So the song is about her, and just a way of saying thank you, because music can move you and it can touch you in different ways. And sometimes things you can't say with words, maybe you can use in a song.