Deep roots and a lot of work give Logan Mize’s brand of country a special sound.

Logan Mize was just 16 and living in rural Clearwater, Kansas when a Kenny Chesney concert changed his life for good.

“There’s no musical genres or categories when you’re a kid. A good song is just a good song, wherever it comes from,” Mize says. “Although I wasn’t a huge country fan at the time, when I saw him up there playing guitar, singing words he had written, and connecting with people, I thought, ‘I could do that.’”

It didn’t hurt that there were some deep roots in his family tree. His great uncle, Billy Mize, was one of the architects of the now-legendary Bakersfield Sound, a mid-1950s subgenre of country which arose as a reaction to the slickly produced Nashville records of the day. It included country pioneers like Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, and later, in the 1970s, morphed into modern-day outlaw country, when Waylon and Willie joined the fold.

“Billy was a pioneer – Buck played lead in Billy’s band,” Mize says. “And Merle sang on the TV show Billy hosted in the ’50s, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch. They were going against the Nashville grain way back then. That spirit is definitely there in me.”

It certainly seems to be. Following an eponymously titled 2009 debut album and his second effort in 2012, Nobody in Nashville – which peaked at No. 49 on the U.S. country charts – Mize hit the road for the next five years. In 2017 he issued his latest release, the aptly titled Come Back Road.

The record bursts with songs of tribute to loves won and laments to those lost, celebrating the drinking buddies, the good times and bad times of the journey. With chord changes more akin to folk rock than country, the lyrics and melodies are clearly placed in the mainstream country lexicon.

“It was one of those projects where everything just fell into place,” Mize says.

The road upward certainly hasn’t always been that easy. Mize was homeless and lived in his Suburban for awhile. For a stint, he was sleeping on a friend’s laundry room floor. Before music began to pay the bills, he drove a dump truck, delivered furniture and weed-whacked ditches for a living. But to him, it was worth the strain.

“I’m incredibly grateful to actually be doing what I dreamed about as a kid,” Mize says.

LOGAN MIZE 7pm Sunday, Dec. 2. Sunset Center Studio 105, San Carlos and Ninth, Carmel. $25. 620-2048, sunsetcenter.org