Windsor. Conn., May 2009. “All I ever wanted to do was write songs,” says Matt Walker, an Enfield native who has recently released his second CD, Redemption.

“My whole thing has always been about whats' right for the song.”

Walker had a wake up call as a teen,when his foray into the drug scene landed him in a Newport Ritchie, Fla. hospital with heart problems.

“Ever since then, I realized I wasn’t invincible and started thinking more about spiritual things,” he explains. “My parents i...