The Homer Dever Band is Leipers Fork's neighborhood band. We love our community and our purpose is to save the world one hillbilly song at a time.

Download "Prozac TV" (song playing in the background).
If you like what you hear and want to support Homer's favorite cause,
Kids on Stage, please consider buying the CD at CD Baby.

Click here to listen to tracks.

Homer's favorite cause is the Kids on Stage Foundation and they will receive all proceeds from the sale of his new CD. If you have any extra money laying around please send it to the Kids on Stage Foundation, 3309 Bailey Rd. Franklin, TN 37064 and they'll put it to good use.

A Legend Upholds the Roots of Purity, Remains Shrouded in Mystery
by Chaca Anne Derson

"When Homer Dever disappeared 42 years ago, the tone of country music changed. But the man's influence was only hiding, never forgotten, and through a rather cloudy set of circumstances is once again revealed. Just in the nick of time.

Dever remains a man we have little knowledge of. In the 1950s, as a very young man, he became an honored and sought-after local roadhouse musician until the time he began to be recognized by the press and develop fans. At the end of the decade he disappeared overnight, with rumors of his appearances from Texas to Washington State. It's generally thought that he settled in rural Tennessee in the 1970s.

It was sometime in the early 90s that Aubrey Preston of Leiper's Fork, Tennessee first encountered the recluse. Stories of their meeting are varied, but it's determined a friendship took hold, as Preston is now the bandleader and official spokesman for Dever. As Preston describes the band, Homer's boys play "some of the best red hot fiddlin' and steel guitar you ever laid your ears on".

'Homer Dever's music spans the golden age of hillbilly music that began in the mid-1930s and ended with the evolvement of rockabilly, country music and eventually rock 'n' roll during the cold war years. The band's repertoire includes roots music standards from Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Bill Monroe, along with hillbilly influenced originals like "Leipers Fork Standard Time" and buck dance favorite "Uncle Lester Blues".

Additionally, in the tradition of our modern culture, we are witness to the manifestation of Homer's Angels. This is a group of local women that may become a cult phenomenon. The Angels follow the band and collect the stories that surround the man. Such tales include a cabin so well camouflaged it's invisible, his preference for wild meats - specifically rattlesnake and coyote - and sightings in the crowd of a tall, lanky man in a dark hat with a silver ponytail spilling down his back. A photo of Dever pencil-scrawled "1949" reveals a country kid holding a guitar; a smoldering expression on his face as he's completely engrossed in the seriousness of the moment.

Whatever the truth behind the myths, Homer Dever remains an element that contemporary music has nearly forgotten but must remember. Listen to The Homer Dever Band and you'll be reminded of what truly counts in great American music.

Article from Country Music Authority printed June 30, 2001