After Years on the Road, Charles Wesley Godwin Was in a 'Funk' — Until He Wrote Himself Out of It (Exclusive)

“I decided to write about me and my family,” the country-folk musician told PEOPLE about his new album ‘Family Ties’

As Charles Wesley Godwin prepared to release his new album Family tiesthe singer-songwriter was tasked with finding some old family photos that could be used for the cover.

“I had stacks and stacks of pictures to choose from, from the 1800s to my childhood to now,” Godwin says during an interview with PEOPLE. “There was a picture of my great-grandfather Godwin being held as a baby by my great-great-grandfather at the turn of the century.” He pauses. “It’s just some cool stuff.”

And while several of these images are now on the cover Family tiesthey all reminded Godwin not only of where he came from, but where he ultimately wanted to go.

Charles Wesley Godwin’s Family Connections.

Courtesy of Big Loud

“I had a great childhood,” reflects Godwin, 30. “My mom was a teacher and my dad was a miner and we had a nice house. I didn’t want anything. My brother and I had everything we needed.”

However, unlike many of his current creative peers, Godwin says music didn’t play a big role during his growing up years.

“I just assumed that I couldn’t sing and that no one in my family played, so I didn’t even consider it as a possibility,” he explains. “It wasn’t until I was 19 or 20 that I stopped playing sports and felt I needed to find more hobbies and productive things.”

Charles Wesley Godwin.

David McClister

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Indeed, at this time, Godwin was increasingly intrigued by the music of artists such as The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons and Bob Dylan. “I was watching the Grammys in 2011, and I was watching their performance, and I was like, ‘That was amazing,'” Godwin remembers. “I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I should just pick up a guitar.’ That’s how it started”.

The guitar Godwin took once belonged to his brother, discarded somewhere in the closet of their family home in West Virginia.

“I picked it up for about 15 minutes a day for about a year and finally in 2012 I started stringing chords together,” recalls Godwin, who in 2013 wrote one of his first songs, “Soul Like Mine,” which is now included on Family ties. “I was lucky to find it because I believe it’s something I feel I’m a natural at. I bet most people in this world have something they’re ‘natural’ at, and that’s just if they’re lucky enough to find that thing and I follow her.”

For Godwin, “following it” meant taking the time to discover who he really was as an artist, an artist whose rootsy sound certainly has a way of capturing the ears of anyone who hears it. But after a grueling few years on the road, there came a time at the end of 2021 when Godwin is said to have found himself in a complete funk.

“There were all kinds of new pressures in my work life that had never existed before,” he remembers. “I was talking to my father-in-law one night and he just put my head back in the right place and just said, ‘Hey, you can’t worry about anything you can’t control. here.'”

From that point on, Godwin began writing the songs that would eventually be compiled Family tiesa treasure of 19 songs that takes listeners on a sonic ride of life.

“I decided to write about me and my family,” he says, noting that the only character song on the album is “10-38,” which he describes as “the other half of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘State Trooper.'” “I got out of my funk by being very personal and opening up to people in a way I hadn’t before.”

Currently living in a “nice little place outside of Morgantown, West Virginia” with his wife Samantha and their two children Gabriel and Abigail, Godwin will spend the rest of the year on his fall tour before joining Luke Combs’ Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old Stadium Tour in 2024 .

And all the while, he’ll be counting his blessings.

“Just the other day we were on a two-lane road and this tractor-trailer tried to pass another, and it shouldn’t have, and it almost collided head-on with another tractor-trailer, which was only a hundred meters in front of us,” Godwin suddenly mentions. you don’t know what can happen at any moment, you know? It’s good to let people know where you stand in case something happens.”

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Source: HIS Education