By Adrian Gomez / Journal Arts and Entertainment Editor

Days in R.W. Hampton’s life are never the same.

The musician focuses hard on balancing his life – and he’s got a lot to balance.

He’s a musician, a father, a husband and a rancher.

“Every morning is an adventure,” he says. “It’s starting to turn to autumn here. I love this time of year up in the mountains.”

Hampton and his wife run Clearview Ranch, 20 miles southwest of Cimarron.

He was born and raised in Texas and often pays homage to the proponents of Western swing, such as Bob Wills and Ray Price.

He wouldn’t change his scenery for any reason.

“This is the old high, rolling country,” he says. “It’s about 6,600 feet, and it rolls off to the east, and to the west are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It’s very easy to be inspired out here. The mountains never change, but the colors in the morning when the sun rises and in the evening when the sun sets are worth it.”

Hampton’s latest album, “My Country,” contains 15 tracks that combine new material with some older songs.

“The themes on this album are relevant to me,” he says. “The album is a cross section of songs and a spoken word that circle around the themes of cowboy life, pride in the land and the search for freedom and a love for heritage.”

Recording the album was sort of a family affair. One of Hampton’s five sons, Colter, wrote the single “Living Free.”

“He’s not just boots and a hat,” Hampton says of his son. “He and his family live and work on a ranch in the Oklahoma Panhandle, where Colter is on horseback every day. He’s already worked for some great ranches and ridden with incredible cowboys. He is well-respected – on top of that, he’s written a catalog of really great songs. When I heard this, I thought it fits the album so, well, I just had to record it.”

On the album, Hampton also wrote a song, “The One,” for his boys, who were curious about how he and his wife, Lisa, met.

“There’s a line in ‘The One’ about Bonnie Gray, a name my wife adopted as an alias after we ere married and she was my promoter,” he says. “I wrote this as a fun song to tell them about it. To tell the truth, I’m a lazy writer and I take my time with songs. It’s always been my process.”