It sounds like an old Willie Nelson song but who wouldn’t want to keep it simple and real: small house, pets, a yard, songs to play locally, and never having to work for the man. Well, Charles Wesley Godwin is matching some of those very ideal life priorities worth his number one. Yet Godwin has a shockingly potent voice that stinks with a gravitas that sounds earnest, emotive, and earthy in all the most musically legit ways.
Godwin will be releasing his new album How the Mighty Fall on November 5th, the follow-up to his debut Seneca, which has been streamed almost 4.4 million times on Spotify alone. Since that release in 2019, he’s been signed to True Grit Management, alongside such luminaries as the Black Pumas, Cody Jinks, Nikki Lane, Paulk Cauthen, and Daniel Donato.
Glide is premiering the ravishing “Lyin’ Low,” How the Might Fall (below) which buzzes with a full steam of electric guitars, drums, and string instruments giving the song a working-class rootsy flair. Yet while the song might be dipped in the joys of keeping it true, Godwin boils his notes in a compelling way that would make most do a double-take for Colter Wall or Sturgill Simpson.