I’ve lived the past couple of days under the guidance of the new Wesley Randolph Eader album Highway Winds. It’s been a good place to be, because this is rather spectacular songwriting. I think I’ll stick around here for a while and make this my home.
Wesley Randolph Eader is a Portland-based country-folk songwriter and Highway Winds is his second album. I completely missed the 2012 debut Of Old It Was Recorded, but I’ll correct that mistake once this gorgeous new album has left me off the hook. That might not happen very soon, because I’m very fond of this after a couple of days of listening to it. Man should be very wary of comparing anyone to the late great Townes Van Zandt, because he sure was one of a kind. However, there’s a couple of songs that remind me a lot of Townes. Sorrows For A Song and Waitin’s What We Do especially fall into that that category. These might also be my early favourites on the album, but there’s so much more to love. There’s a bit of old-time, bluegrass and even gospel too.. and a whole lot of amazing songs. All in all. It’s a really magnificent record filled by great songwriting. Blitzen Trapper frontman Eric Earley also features heavily on the record as a musician and co-producer, but of course it’s Wesley that is under the spotlight right now. Here are a couple of excellent songs from Highway Winds. You can buy and/or listen to the whole album on his Bandcamp.