Local Chattanooga outlaw country musician Journeyman John Baker, who goes by Baker, has released his debut album after years of performing and creating music.
The album is entitled I’m Keeping the Boots and came out on all streaming platforms October 31st, 2025. Baker will be performing songs from the album at Gate 11 Distillery on Thursday, November 20th.
Baker originally hails from New Orleans and started out playing punk and rockabilly before graduating to outlaw country.
Throughout the album, there are layers of humor mixed deftly with tracks about heartache, loss, regret, death, and reflection.
The first track, “Stuck With You,” deals in humor and opens similarly to how the last track, “The Last Words of the Cowboy,” opens, with sounds of nature. While the first track begins with the sounds of morning and birds chirping, the final track consists of sounds of the evening, something Baker suggested that he did intentionally as an overall theme to the album.
“In my mind, the album is meant to sort of represent the transition from morning to night. But the light isn’t necessarily good, and the dark isn’t necessarily bad. Incorporating the sounds of nature made sense. What you hear in the beginning are literally the sounds of morning birds from my back porch. The night sounds I recorded off of Kelly Cross Rd. out in Dunlap last year while out trying to catch the Leonids Meteor Shower.”
At one point in the first track, Baker suggests that “Now you’re gone, all gone, I’m so happy I just don’t know what to do. Since I’ve up and had my fill, you might have stuck me with the bill; at least I didn’t get stuck with you.” Hilarious tracks like this are scattered throughout, and in the track “Work. Drink. Die.” Baker explores the plight of the working man through a humorous lens too.
Other tracks, like “Another Cocaine Blues” and “Table For One,” carry humor through the bleakness, with some being nods to other outlaw music.
“There’s a good dose of humor on the album. Even in a song like “Table For One,” bleak as it is, it manages a joke: “I’ll find my hat and my feet.” “Another Cocaine Blues” is a joke about how every outlaw country musician has a song called Cocaine Blues. The Revival is extremely cheeky. I know this album has a lot of heartbreak, loss, regret, and pain on it. A lot of reflection. A lot of heaviness. Humor can act like salt in a plate of food, helping you to taste everything better.”
The final track, “The Last Words of the Cowboy,” is by far the most profound and beautiful track on the album. It is the album’s opus, and, funnily enough, the album ends with a song about death. It feels separate from the rest of the album and like its own standalone track, while also feeling like a beautiful add-on that complements softer tracks like “Table For One.”
The song begins with soft finger-picking and the sounds of nature before Baker sings the following lyrics.
“Please don’t put me in the ground; that’s no place to rest my bones, in the darkness all alone, left to mold in the churchyard, far beneath the dirt and rocks. Please don’t put me in the ground; take me to a peaceful place. Stretch me out on Yonder Mesa, with some flowers on my breast; that’s the place I yearn to go, that’s the place I want to rest.”
With an album that effortlessly navigates a world of heartache and pain with humor, there is still so much beauty and profundity layered throughout. When asked about the final track and the themes of the album as a whole, Baker said it best himself.
“It’s funny, looking back on it now, the song’s lyrics, how they all kind of straddle being hopeful and resigned, loving and fearful, sad and joyful, all recurring themes throughout the album.”
Journeyman John Baker
- Thursday, November 20, 7-9 p.m.
- Gate 11 Distillery. 1400 Market St. Chattanooga,
- Tickets: $30. gate11distillery.com
- Link to Album: soundcloud.com/pos1