Student musician releases song about USU titled ‘College With a View’

A little while ago, a small-town Kentucky farm boy with a love of mountains, snowboarding and all things outdoors took a trip to the West with his mom. 

That’s all it took to convince Luke Huffman that Utah State University was the ultimate destination to finish his bachelor’s degree. 

“Nothing quite caught his eye like USU,” Huffman’s mother, Melissa Huffman, said. 

The senior, who is studying interdisciplinary studies with disciplines of landscape architecture, plant science and ecology, finds respite through afternoons in Logan Canyon. 

Huffman’s love for music and nature is what led him to write his newest song, “College With a View.” The song captures the essence of college life through his wild adventures in Logan Canyon and his time spent outside.

Check out my brand spanking new song! (It's about USU) #usu #gwaggieshttps://t.co/VbNa7nl1PM

— Luka (@lc_huffman) August 23, 2019

Human biology major and Huffman’s friend, Chade Gonters, describes “College with a View” as a scrapbook. 

“When I listen to it, it will paint pictures in my mind of all the things we did together at USU,” Gonter said. “He doesn’t just say what he is thinking in his songs. It really is just about having a fantastic time at beautiful USU, mixed with all of his very real memories.”

While Huffman now has thousands of streams on Spotify, learning the art of music wasn’t always easy for him. 

At the age of eight, Luke Huffman and his brother, Clay Huffman, began taking lessons from a classical guitar player who came to visit their town. 

While Clay Huffman was able to understand the concepts and catch on right away, the guitar teacher told Luke Huffman’s parents that he would never be able to play anything with music because of his “big hands and short attention span.” 

The teacher told his parents that he should never try to pick up music. 

But Huffman’s parents refused to give up hope that their son would learn to play the guitar. 

“I was shocked that a teacher would be negative instead of encouraging a young child to pursue his interests,” Melissa Huffman said. “That was followed by a little righteous anger.” 

While his brother was still taking lessons, Luke Huffman would play around on his brother’s guitar to see what he could do.

“Eventually, it got to where it frustrated him enough that I was playing the same stuff as he would without lessons,” Huffman said. 

The Huffmans ended up switched guitar teachers and encouraged Huffman to keep playing. He continued lessons for a few months, came home one day and said he’d “learned all they could teach him.” 

He quit lessons soon after and started teaching himself. He never had another lesson. 

Huffman’s earliest exposure to songwriting began by taking words from the book of Psalms in the Bible and putting them to music. He started by slowly adding chords and, eventually, they began to flow with inspiration from nature and people in his life. 

Huffman has faced opposition from many close to him about his choice to pursue music. He has also worked through the challenges of an injury he received while snowboarding. 

Huffman struggles to remember short-term information, which often results in struggling to remember lyrics to his new songs. 

“I just overcome it with tons of practice, I think, but I still get worried about forgetting,” Huffman said. 

At the first “Poetry and a Beverage” or “PoBev” event held at USU last September, student Jessica Tolman made conversation with a nervous Huffman and his friend, Chuck Deakins. 

As she made friends with the two men, she told Deakins and Huffman they should go to a concert the next night she had heard about on Instagram. 

It just so happened to be Huffman’s album release party. 

The two became fast friends, spending almost every day together since they met. Their friendship developed into a relationship over the past year, complete with trips through Logan Canyon and talks by the river where Huffman would sit and play his guitar. 

Tolman remembers listening to his songs from the beginning of his music releases and desperately wanted to be the subject of his songs. 

“I recognized that he had such a unique way to describe his experiences and world views,” Tolman said. “I also have loved music with such a passion, so it is way cool that we have been able to connect through that love. My original dream has been fulfilled, like, 20 times over.” 

Luke Huffman’s ability to overcome even the toughest challenges has become apparent through his talents and the songs he has released. He has written over 1,000 songs and has released over 17 of them, with 20 more to be released in the near future. 

Tolman describes Huffman as an inspired person and one of the happiest, most optimistic people. 

“He can turn any regular venture into the most extraordinary adventure, and every time I’m sad, he picks me up upside-down and spins me around until I’m laughing my guts out,” Tolman said. 

Gonter describes Huffman as someone who lives his life as “bravely bold.” 

“He is someone I look up to when it comes to the way I want to interact with the people around me because he is the perfect quintessence of a magnificent human being,” Gonter said. 

Huffman hopes that his new song inspires people to develop more of a love for USU, just as he has by writing it. 

“I would hope that my song would instill a further passion for this awesome university,” Huffman said. “Every time I’m on the Quad, I look around and it feels like an Ivy League. Everything seems so perfect, and it seems like a little paradise here.” 

To find out more about Huffman and his music, follow @lc_huffman on Twitter. 

—kortni.marie.wells@aggiemail.usu.edu

@kortniwells