Art, or “Ardie” as he was known to friends and family, was born and raised in West Columbia, South Carolina in 1949. By all accounts, albeit few, he was an introvert with creative, sensitive, and intelligent qualities. Ardie didn’t have his own band when he decided to cut an album of original music he’d crafted and accumulated, but he had access to the session musicians who were his coworkers at United Music World. Despite Piper Oz the Hound’s small pressing and lack of organized distribution, it is a rare album of melodic country psych pop that offers a candid snapshot of one man’s struggle to come to terms with a broken heart.