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Tennessee singer pens song inspired by Gatlinburg wildfires

As the world watched and waited for any and all news regarding the 2016 Sevier County wildfires, a Tennessee singer/songwriter put her feelings to music. An interview on the radio inspired Reagan Boggs to write the song "Cinders and Smoke."

With every strum on her guitar, Reagan Boggs performs songs written from the strings of her heart.

"I've been playing music since I was a little girl," Boggs said. "I got a guitar when I was 6-years-old for my birthday."

She graduated from a toy guitar to a real one, and began writing songs when she was a teenager.

"We lived in the back of the holler in Pound, Virginia. We didn't have cable or anything so I had a lot of time to do those kinds of things," Boggs said. "My mom, she was a big Loretta Lynn fan, of course I was too, and Dolly Parton, and so mom wrote a lot of songs about telling the guy off in the bar rooms, dragging him out, all of those kinds of songs. So if you heard the songs that I wrote back then, they were very much like that."

From Facebook (Used with permission)Reagan Boggs performs as part of WDVX's Blue Plate Special

As Reagan matured, so did the songs she wrote; her themes moved on to love and family and things that inspired her.

"Once I realized that I probably wasn't going to be a country music star in the sense you have Carrie Underwood or someone like that, I stopped trying to write songs that were what I considered commercial or would have mass appeal," Boggs said. "I just started writing things that mattered to me, that were affecting people around me just keeping it honest and real."

On Nov. 28, 2016, Boggs joined the rest of the world in watching a tragedy unfold in the city of Gatlinburg and surrounding areas as wildfires rained down and residents and visitors were forced to leave everything behind and escape.

"I could not describe the feelings that I was feeling at that time," remembered Boggs. "How devastating and how frightening. Your whole life and the whole way of life just completely gone in that short time and then not knowing how you were affected at the end of the day."

As she sorted out feelings of grief and helplessness, the songwriter in her found inspiration in, of all places, an interview on the radio.

"I had listened to this guy talking about seeing the fire on the ridge and then deciding that they were going to have to leave," recalled Reagan. "So that verse just started writing itself."

Reagan's song "Cinders and Smoke" tells the story of escaping a wildfire and not knowing what your next move will be. Reagan was careful not to mention Gatlinburg specifically in the song because the theme is universal.

"The first line is of the song is "look at the lights, babe--on the ridge glow. Grab what you can, it's time to go,'" Boggs said.

The songs goes on to include references to downed trees, a chapel engulfed in flames and the firefighters who came from all over the country to help fight the fires.

"That's one of the photographs I remember seeing is one of the chapels burning. So just describing what it was looking like at the time and you know the trees were down and people were having to turn around having to find ways to get out, and you know I wanted to paint the picture of what that was looking like," Boggs said.

"'The trees are laying down like they've gone to bed, the church is blazing where we wed.' It had to be in there because everyone's been married in Gatlinburg at least once or twice, right?," laughed Boggs.

From her home in Bristol, Tennessee, Boggs wrote "Cinders and Smoke" in early December 2016. She recorded it on her cell phone so she wouldn't forget the words and then shared the song on social media.

"I posted it on Facebook and had a pajama shirt on and everything," said Reagan. "I was like 'nobody will see this.' Woke up and it had 30,000 views and it had been shared like 500 something times and I'm like 'wow, I wish I had looked better.'"

Nearly a year later, "Cinders and Smoke" continues to strike a chord with listeners, which isn't lost on its author.

"I just let it take on its own life. I write songs, they are very personal. Usually they are very special, they are healing in a lot of ways for me just snapshots in time, I guess, of different feelings I have," Reagan said.

Boggs said the song is very special to her and she would love for it to inspire and comfort those who hear it. She doesn't know where the song will go from now, but has one thought on who she would love to hear and then record it: Dolly Parton.

"I just hope it gets out to as many people as possible, that is with any song I do," Boggs said. "If Dolly was to do it, that would be awesome, too. I won't deny that, it would be a bucket list thing."

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