Edward R. Collins · Founder
The anchor fouled.
The course held true.
A retired Navy Chief, storyteller, independent publisher, and stubborn believer in creative people with something honest to say.
How it began
Championing, course setting, and cash.
“What does it take to get your next three songs published?” I asked Ethan Willis one day on the drive back from the range. His answer was simple: championing, course setting, and cash.
I did not have a huge bankroll, but I had enough to set something in motion. In 2022, I founded Fouled Anchor Music and helped publish Ethan’s Can’t Call It, See You Next Week, and Set on Summertime.
The next major project was Raleigh Keegan’s Appalachian High—an album full of Appalachian truth, layered in melody, memory, struggle, and love.
The work grew into books, too. Appalachian High: A Dreamer’s Tale, The Broken Compass, and the book now being written, Devil to Pay, form the 3 Chords and a Lie trilogy under the Fouled Anchor Music publishing umbrella.
Today the wider Fouled Anchor family includes Fouled Anchor Creative Hub, a separate photography studio built around purposeful visual work.
Why the name matters
Hard work before a steady hold.
A fouled anchor is caught, tangled, and resisting the seabed. Clearing it takes persistence. Once free, that anchor can hold steady again. It is an honest metaphor for creative work: faith, sweat, course correction, and the refusal to stop before the work has found its place.