My latest CD: Everything I Know About Love

Over four years in the making, my latest effort contains 14 original songs that bring Americana into the 21st Century.

The CD features great performances from usual suspects like Mike Grow on lead guitar & lap steel and Angela Hessler on violin. It also features Samantha Olson on violin, “Cousin” Ken Maffeo on drums and vocals, Rich Brodsky on lead guitar and special guest, “Accordion Babe” Amber Lee Baker on vocals and accordion. Learn more about the players by clicking here: Players. In addition you can scroll down below to read more about the influences that helped create this music. For those of you who want to know more about the songs, there are individual pages with samples, lyrics, credits and stories for all 14 songs. Feel free to explore!

Though there is a strong vein of rootsy Americana throughout, no CD of mine could exist without a few departures which you will find on the jazzy, piano pop of “Daisy” or the “trancedelic” “Forgotten.

To purchase the actual CD (which includes the fantastic cover art) or for digital downloads in a variety of lossy or lossless formats from CD Baby, click on the “Buy CD” link below. You can also digitally download the whole CD or individual tracks through iTunes (see link below), Amazon.com and other online retailers. Or if you want a personalized autograph, you can buy directly from me through PayPal (see link below). You can listen on Jango, Rhapsody, and Spotify as well. Email me at vincecharming@comcast.net to join my mailing list and get a free download of the single “The Barefoot Girl”.

Buy Now from CD Baby

Vince Charming: Everything I Know About Love

All New: Buy directly from me and get a personalized autographed copy of the CD and pay through PayPal. Click the “Buy Now” button.

Personalized Message

My Americana Musical Journey

In tracing what has lead me to my current state as an Americana artist I come back often to two significant releases. The first was Lucinda Williams’ Grammy award winning Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in 1998. The songwriting, guitar playing, and singing just knocked me out. There was something about that sound that spoke to me (and millions of others). Two years later, in 2000 I joined singer-songwriter, Calvin McElroy’s band, A Bubble Off Plumb as his bassist. Calvin turned me on to Steve Earle who had just released Transcendental Blues which remains my favorite of his and one of my all time favorite albums. Calvin was like Steve in many ways. He blended a wide range of influences: Celtic, blues, country, folk, classic rock, cajun, western, psychedelia…That band paved the way for me. We played as a trio mostly, but sometimes with a violin player and for awhile with the late, great John Havard from The Natives on guitar and accordion. We played both acoustic and electric songs and Calvin’s songs were great. It was also during that time that Calvin got me interested in learning more about Gram Parsons. In a short time I read Ben Fong-Torres bio of Gram, grabbed every recording he ever did and became somewhat obsessed with his music. The final piece may have been seeing the great Johnny Cash bio-pic Walk the Line a few years later in 2005. That really helped shape the direction of my just forming band, The New Americans. That and playing with Mike Grow who allowed me to explore this new genre by being able to play the lap steel and mandolin in addition to his great guitar. There are other artists in this vein I might mention like the Jayhawks and Ryan Adams, but I think this really is where it all got started.