Barrett Davis

When one finds themselves standing at the crossroads of their long-held dreams, you’re left with two choices — either turn in one direction of complacency or go the other way and plunge headfirst into the endless possibilities of your aspirations.

For Western North Carolina singer-songwriter/guitarist Barrett Davis, he chose the life of a ragged troubadour. It’s a whirlwind existence of stages and microphones, of anonymous faces in the crowd eager to see what you have to offer, an arduous trek along that lost highway — constantly in search of your inner truths and honest self.

“I just came to this serious point in my life where I realized that if I want to make music and perform, then it’s now or never — I’ve got to make something of it,” the 29-year-old Davis says.

That something is Davis’ latest album, “The Ballad of Aesop Finn,” a vibrant tapestry, meandering from modern Americana to classic country, indie-folk to the “high, lonesome sound” of bluegrass.

The record itself is a kitchen sink of tones — as heard on “Quiver,” “Lazarus” and “Carolina Still” — one which ideally showcases the wide-range and unknown depths of Davis, his musical pursuits and exploits.

“Aesop Finn is a mythical character, raised in the woods. His dad is a moonshine runner, his mother nowhere to be found,” Davis says. “Aesop finds a lover and ends up getting killed in a gambling incident, then she ends up tumbling into a waterfall — it’s symbolic of the vicious cycle of tragedies in these mountains of Appalachia.”

Growing up in Lake Toxaway, a rural outpost community in the mountainous ridges of Transylvania County, Davis was surrounded by music from an early age — exposed to the blues licks of his guitar-playing father, the swirling classical sounds of his mother’s piano playing or the inner echoes of his sister, now a professional opera singer.

“But, for me, I stuck with bluegrass and carpentry,” Davis chuckles. “There was just something about bluegrass, folk and mountain music that has always called to me, conjuring something from real deep inside me that I haven’t been able to shake since I first heard it.”