Meet N.C.'s most underrated songwriter
David Childers reflects on faith, art and gratitude as he faces cancer and enters the N.C. Music Hall of Fame
The following article appeared in the Aug. 1, 2025, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Blessed in an unusual way: The many lives and songs of David Childers — lawyer, artist, songwriter, survivor
Surrounded by his art and a lifetime of stories, David Childers finds music in the light and shadows. The crucifix on the wall appears on the cover of his album, “Blessed in an Unusual Way.” (Photo courtesy of A.M. Stewart)
by Mark Kemp
Hidden back from the road in a thicket of native trees, the 120-year-old house in Mount Holly looks like it could be haunted. Or cursed. Or maybe blessed — in an unusual way. A plastic skeleton greets visitors from a rickety wooden chair on the front porch, its bony neck draped in a garland of fake flowers.
Inside, in a corner of the living room, David Childers, flesh still very much attached to his own bones, sits in an easy chair strumming the final chord of a new song he’s written. It’s a talking blues about a vagrant stuck in a Durham bus station, praying for a free ride home. The man eventually makes it there — with help from a few angels along the way.
Childers gently places his battered Gibson acoustic guitar back onto its instrument stand and stares into the glow of the mid-afternoon sun streaming through translucent curtains. Surrounding him are walls and shelves filled with primitive paintings and other pieces of folk art: a muted blue cat with wise eyes, a shiny crucifix, a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe.
Several of the works are his own creations. Since the 1990s, the stocky small-town lawyer with a gruff Southern drawl has made a name for himself as a sort of Renaissance man in this quaint Gaston County community just northwest of Charlotte. After years spent in courtrooms, he dusted off his old guitar, picked up a pen and later a paint brush, and began producing a steady stream of richly descriptive poems, songs and artworks packed with religious imagery characterizing a world — or a soul — in chaos.
Right now, he’s pondering the question I’ve just asked him: “What does it feel like when you’ve finished writing a song? You’re satisfied with it, you play it, and suddenly it exists in the world for others to experience.”
The room goes silent. His eyes well up. And then, finally…