Seasoned American songwriter Tim Easton releases Find Your Way on May 17th.
‘Seasoned’? Easton was born in 1966, spent his formative years in Japan and in Ohio, and his older youth busking in various European countries. He returned to the US in the mid-1990’s and recorded his debut solo album in 1998. By my reckoning, Find Your Way is his eleventh solo studio album.
Easton has toured from US East coast to US West coast to Alaska and he currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He has played with musical ‘names’ as diverse as Jim Keltner and Lucinda Williams. His website tells you that he hit, “the milestone of having 100 Published original songs which he celebrated by releasing 100 solo performance videos on 100 consecutive days, all posted on his personal YouTube channel”.
‘Seasoned’ sounds about right and is the ideal word to introduce this new album, skilled, classy and drawing on life for songs he describes as “feature films inside three-minute chunks of music”.
As an example, the opening track, ‘Find Your Way’ is a reflection on every day being another chance to find your way, the slower reflective tone of the tune and arrangement perfectly mirroring the lyric. The official video below puts images to the story, but images that are not photographic, rather they allow you to fill your own details to the mood of the song.
‘Everything You’re Afraid Of’ follows on. This is another mature writer’s song, the lyric reassuring that “You’re gonna be alright” and suggesting positive actions to take – all sung to a steady, equally reassuring, percussion and with an acoustic lead break following the lyric’s suggestion that one of the actions to take is to play guitar. The third track ‘Here For You’ is, obviously, a not dissimilar theme.
Elsewhere on the album, ‘Dishwasher’s Blues’ is an up-tempo track drawing on that interface between blues and Americana that Croce used to do. ‘Bangin’ Drum (Inside My Mind)’ is even bluer, slower, late-Dylan tone – you can understand why Easton was asked to contribute ‘Spanish Harlem Incident’ to A Bob Dylan Tribute: So Happy Just To See You Smile.
‘Jacqueline’ is a gently lively tune to a story of decision points. On ‘Little Brother’, again, the title tells you most of what you need to know on this song about a family dealing with the consequences of addiction, and therefore a story of a different kind of relationship. Both these songs are powerfully cinematic and I have the filmic story in my head as I listen to the three minutes or so of the tracks.
Find Your Way ends with a couple of slower tracks. The penultimate is ‘What Will It Take’ … “for you to love me again” a lovely Southern-sounding track with a splendid harmony – but the harmony is created by guitar rather than backing vocal. ‘By The End of the Night’, all Latin-soul and smooth vocal is a perfect final-track-of-the-album on this smoochy tale of there being “nothing left to do but to fall in love with you by the end of the night.” To return to the cinematic imagery, I can see the two dancing slowly and falling in love to the music, lights slow and romantic. The song might create slightly different details in the images for you, but the mood will be the same – that’s the beauty of Easton’s writing and playing.
Easton is currently on tour in Japan, but by the time the album is released, he will be touring in America until October, and then travelling to Holland in November.
Mike Wistow
Website: https://www.timeaston.com
‘Everything You’re Afraid Of’ – official video:
Thanks for stopping by. Please help us continue and support us by tipping/donating to folking.com via
You must be logged in to post a comment.