How a single performance reshaped a songwriter’s path toward empathy and truth.
There’s a quiet strength in Thom Chacon’s music—an honest simplicity that cuts through metaphor and lingers long after the last chord fades. In Durango, he’s more than just a singer-songwriter; he’s become a local troubadour whose songs feel like vital conversations, crafted with patience, perspective, and lived experience.
Chacon’s life follows two steady rhythms: casting a fly line over the Animas River and the familiar weight of a guitar across his lap. As a seasoned fishing guide, he spends hours in quiet, attentive silence, reading water and stones. That same stillness influences his songwriting, which tends toward raw truth. “You spend enough time around 70-million-year-old rock formations, and you start to think differently,” he says. “It gives you perspective. It shows you what’s worth writing about.”
That perspective deepened on July 4, 2004—a moment Chacon describes as a turning point in his life as a songwriter.
I played my songs for 350 inmates at Folsom Prison. I’ll never forget the look of survival in their eyes. They were gracious, kind, and enthusiastic. A captive audience, someone later pointed out. After that experience, I was left to ponder many things. One of which was—you never want to end up in prison. Another—everyone deserves a moment of escape, a reprieve, no matter how flawed they are.
That day didn’t just pass by; it changed how he wrote.
Folsom was the moment that sent me down a different writer’s path. I began to write about people other than myself. I wanted to pen stories of the downtrodden, immigrants, the wrongly accused, and the rightly accused. I was happy that my band and I could provide a brief distraction for the prisoners that day. Those inmates inspired a whole bunch of songs that I’m still writing today.
It’s no coincidence that Chacon is one of only three musicians granted permission to perform at Folsom Prison since Johnny Cash. The experience became a quiet compass, guiding him toward stories that hold grit and grace in the same hand.
Family history threads through that compass as well. His cousin, two-time featherweight boxing champion Bobby Chacon, inspired his debut album Featherweight Fighter. “No matter how hard it gets, you’ve got to get up off the mat and keep fighting,” Thom has said—a lesson that echoes through both his lyrics and his life.
After years in Los Angeles chasing the industry treadmill, Chacon moved to Durango in 2006. There, he found renewal and the freedom to write without pressure or pretense. That shift sparked an honest Americana collection: Blood in the USA (2018), Marigolds and Ghosts (2021, recorded live in Durango), and Lonely Songs for Wounded Souls (recorded live in Italy with Tony Garnier and Paolo Ercoli).
Today, Chacon continues to connect worlds—music, water, storytelling—creating a docuseries that combines fly fishing and songwriting while planning a European tour in 2026. Durango might be the place he chose, but the exchange has been mutual. Thom Chacon has offered the community songs rooted in landscape and humanity—stories of endurance, empathy, and hard-earned perspective that resonate far beyond the San Juan Mountains.
Where to Listen
Albums, videos, and songwriting sessions: thomchacon.com
