Songwriter and folk artist Herb Metoyer was watching a speech by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama when inspiration struck.
“This is the time,” a phrase that Obama used, became the basis for Metoyer’s song.

“I saw that speech and all those people out there. They were just as hopeful as we are for a better time and he mentioned in his speech, ‘This is the time.’ It just stayed on my mind so I wrote a song about that,” Metoyer said.

After writing the song, it made sense to take advantage of YouTube’s ubiquitous reach, as thousands use the streaming video service to showcase their works and to catch up on favorite movie, TV clips, music videos, etc. Metoyer’s son, Hermes Metoyer, did the editing for the video.
“I hope I can inspire people to get out and vote for Obama,” he said. “Secondly, I kind of hope it will advertise me.”

Metoyer is no amateur. He’s been writing songs for over 40 years, as one of the few African Americans to come out of the folk movement of the ’60s.

His album, “Something New,” recorded on MGM’s VerveFolkways label, was popular.

He has several published songs registered with BMI (Stormking Music, Herb Metoyer Music) and ASCAP (Cane River Media).

His first album “Four Star,” was met with critical attention from Billboard magazine and “Mother, Fools are a Long Line Coming” was recorded by Fred Neil on his “Sessions” album, released by Capitol.

Metoyer has played with Joni Mitchell, Fred Neil, Mike Taylor, Josh White (senior and junior), Vince Martin and others. Folk music is his first and only love as a songwriter.

“I liked documenting stuff, it’s kind of like the writer part of me. I just like to write stories. People I meet, I turn some of them into songs,” Metoyer said. “That’s just my first love. When I first started playing guitar, folk music was the thing I was addicted to right from the beginning.”

When he first picked up the guitar, the goal was to play jazz, but one day he did a fill-in set at a jazz venue and the audience loved his music. From there, his path was clear: no more stumbling through complex jazz chords, he was going to devote all his energies to folk music. That led to publishing and record contracts with Folk Ways, the premier folk label at that time.

Later, he was called to serve in Vietnam and because of the protest nature of songs of the day, he was told by the Army that he’d have to end his recording career. An aviation engineer, he ended up in Thailand. By the time the war was over, so to was the folk music movement, which had fizzled out under the electric guitar boom ushered in by rock.

“Folk music was no longer popular. All of the protesting and stuff had pretty much settled down. The market for folk music just dropped,” Metoyer said. “I was so embedded to it. I’m not a gutbucket blues singer. Folk is about the only thing suitable for my voice.”

With a new CD on the way (“Louisiana On My Mind”), Metoyer is ready to once again be a political voice through his music, and by extension, the campaign of Barack Obama.

“Things are so messed up it’s time to change the way we let people do things,” Metoyer said.

He added that his music isn’t necessarily meant to blaze the charts: “For me it’s a way of kind of recording history and every song I write there’s a story behind it and what it speaks to.”

To see Herb Metoyer’s “This Is The Time,” visit http://www.youtube.com/herbmetoyer. You may also visit www.metacafe.com/tags/herbmetoyer and www.myspace.com/herbmetoyer.