One of the great freedoms that musical Americans enjoy is being able to write, play and record whatever they want, for themselves or for posterity.

Jefferson Ross, formerly of Lincolnton, Ga., has done just that with his independent CD, Azalea, which has been well received in the U.S. and in England.

He produced the CD, wrote or co-wrote its 12 songs, sings lead and plays instruments on it.

It's full of great songs and music. My favorites are the autobiographical I Was Here, and his duet with Lisa McCallum, Hard to Be So Easy (which they co-wrote).

Among his longtime family friends from growing up in Lincolnton are singers Reese LeRoy, Sheri Easter and Little Roy Lewis of The Lewis Family.

Mr. Lewis helped Mr. Ross, then 16, obtain his first paying gig, playing for gospel music impresario Wally Fowler. That led to Mr. Ross' playing with the popular Southern gospel groups The Hemphills and The Happy Goodman Family (featuring Vestal Goodman).

From there, Mr. Ross found himself joining the band of evangelist Jimmy Swaggart. In the 1990s, he took his Martin D-18 guitar and settled in Berlin, just after the wall dividing east and west was torn down.

He toured with a band called Foot Hill Train through Czechoslovakia and had country performer Bryan White record his song On Any Given Night (on Mr. White's Between Now and Forever album).

His life changed when he was hired to play a weekend series of shows for Grand Ole Opry singer Terri Clark.

"It led to my being bandleader of Terri's group for 10 years and also playing bass guitar and singing backup for her," Mr. Ross said. "We opened shows for Reba McEntire, George Strait, Brooks & Dunn, Toby Keith and others.

"In 2005, I came off the road to write full time and got a contract with Curb Records' publishing branch. Terri and I have stayed close, and she is the godmother of my daughter."

As an outgrowth of his publishing deal, Mr. Ross decided to create an independent CD of songs that are very personal to him.

"Most of them are story-driven," he said. "I wanted it to sound like a cross between Guy Clark and Dave Loggins with bluegrass instrumentation."

The CD opens with Hornet Hawkins , a bluesy, jazzy, country story song about a moonshiner, with Mr. Ross on harmonica.

In the song Scenic Route , there are word images of the South reminiscent of poet and novelist James Dickey, with Mr. Ross writing about Jesus Saves signs, slow-moving tractors, kudzu and tire swings.

He and Tiffany Goss sing of an "old lady selling peaches and tomatoes from the back of a pickup truck right in front of an antebellum mansion that's falling down and boarded up."

He closes the CD with The Last Song : "If this was the last song that I got to sing I wouldn't care if it was a hit, whether I sang it at Carnegie Hall or the top of my lungs in our shower stall, as long as you're right there to hear it from me, if this was the last song that I got to sing."

You can check out the songs at www.reverbnation.com/jeffersonross. His Web site is jeffersonross.com.

Don Rhodes has written about country music for 38 years. He can be reached at (706) 823-3214 or at don.rhodes@morris.com.