On a dark December morning in 1980, into a world from which John Lennon had just departed, Ronald Reagan was about to enter office as president, and disco was loosening its grip on American pop culture, Liam Robert Bowler was born at home in Big Fork, Montana. Soon (geologically speaking) Liam was able to give his full attention to the trees and rocks behind his house, the snowmen in the wintertime and the enormous hill to roll down in a tire in the summertime (incidentally, having returned home recently, he found the hill to be “much, much smaller” than remembered).

He recalls how he first came to pick up the guitar: “I was in eighth grade and a few of us were over at a friend’s house. She had just been given a guitar and held it up, untouched and beautiful, and asked if anyone knew how to play. No one! It was then and there I decided that if I learned to play just one song on the guitar, I could be forever cool the next time that situation arose.” The next morning, his dad showed him the chords for “The Fox and the Goose.” Over the next few weeks, he learned a good handful of basic chords, and began playing more and more. (He also learned that “The Fox and the Goose,” though an outstanding folk classic, did not necessarily impress his friends as a cool party song).

A couple years later at the age of 16, Liam wrote his first song. “I took the chord progression from a friend. It had a chorus and everything; I was very proud,” he remembers, “though I was also an awkward teenage boy in many ways, and absolutely petrified to sing in front of anybody.” In spite of performance anxiety, though, he invited his family upstairs to listen (“and they’ve been super supportive ever since,” he adds). He wrote another song the next day, and hundreds since.

Mercy is Liam’s fourth recording project, and the most involved by far. The first recording was of the first ten songs he’d ever written, paid for by his stepfather to record them onto tape in 1996. Four years later, in spring of 2000, Liam recorded eleven more tracks at a friend’s home studio, this time onto a CD, to create Soak It Up.

Less than two years later, Liam went back into the studio to record another solo acoustic album (though well accompanied by Jenny Fawcett on violin on two songs), again in one day. This 14-song CD, titled This Time Around, earned him recognition beyond his bedroom: two of the songs, “Daylight” and “For the Faithful,” were chosen for a compilation with a British record label, Matchbox Recordings. He sold a few copies, and gave a lot away.

Thus far, Liam has been mostly a teacher by trade, starting first as an assistant instructor in taekwondo, a Korean martial art that fully revolutionized his life in eighth grade. He received his first dan black belt at the age of 17, and continued teaching and competing nationally in taekwondo. During his sophomore year in college, he fell in love with the granite peaks and pillars around Missoula, and replaced his devotion to martial arts with climbing rocks, ice and mountains. He went on to teach these skills in the university, and for organizations like Outward Bound (where he was first a student himself).

“There’s a tremendous parallel between being in those mountains and ‘the mountain within,’ so to speak. I know it’s cliché, but for good reason. It’s amazing not only to have a good time climbing mountain peaks, but to do so while forging an almost unbelievable sense of community based on trust and compassion, not because they’re nice ideas but because they’re absolutely essential to stay well in harsh conditions. Those weeks in the mountains are as much in the songs I write as anything else.”

Out of the mountains and back into a studio, the recording of Mercy, with so many other talented musicians, has been an exciting step for the roaming songwriter. “They’re all songs I am honored and excited to share with the world,” he said.

As for the rest of these life notes . . . like yours, they’re being written every moment.