Charles Wesley Godwin‘s stunning seven-song EP Lonely Mountain Town is out today via Big Loud Records. In the 17 months since the release of his breakout album Family Ties, Charles Wesley Godwin’s career has been on a decidedly upward trajectory. Appearances on Colbert, Kimmel, CBS Saturday Sessions, and even ESPN’s Sportscenter. Festival debuts at Bonnaroo and Stagecoach. Opening stadium shows for Luke Combs while the crowds at his own sold-out headline shows swell into the thousands. Instead of dwelling on any chatter that accompanied such a revered release, he did what he always has done: Godwin simply kept on writing. The result of such dutiful persistence was one of Godwin’s most prolific years yet: the musician estimates he wrote nearly 30 songs in 2024, and, in the process, most excitingly arrived at Lonely Mountain Town.
To celebrate the release, Godwin will play a free show at the Station Inn in Nashville this Saturday, March 1 (doors at 2:30 p.m., show at 3 p.m.), and then return to the Grand Ole Opry that evening. The Station Inn show will be an uncharacteristically intimate show for Godwin, who sold out two nights at the Ryman Auditorium when he last headlined Nashville in late 2023.
Lonely Mountain Town is a quieter, more contemplative affair than Family Ties, to be sure. But it also contains some of the most thrilling songs of Godwin’s career to date. “It was really cathartic for me,” he says of re-teaming with his longtime producer, guitarist and bandmate, Al Torrence, at Torrence’s Music Garden Studios in New Brighton, PA, to complete a handful of moving and at times melancholy cuts that ring with surefire sincerity and truth. Godwin notably recorded his vocals separately for the first time in his career in order to give them even more life and resonance.
Written principally on the road, Lonely Mountain Town is at its heart a collection of snapshots and quiet moments in life. The sort of poetic musings that find Godwin raking through situations with a fine-tooth comb and peeling back the layers on the most delicate situations thrown our way. “These are character songs,” Godwin explains. “Most of them aren’t about my life. They’re just little pieces that I’ve taken from traveling.”
Godwin also got to work on Lonely Mountain Town with two musicians he’d long admired. Working with labelmate ERNEST on “Dead to Rights” taught Godwin how sometimes the best songs can be written without painstakingly obsessing over the smallest detail. “I saw that maybe it isn’t the worst thing in the world to sit down and try to write a song in 10 minutes and see how it turns out rather than toiling over a line for a week,” he admits. And then there is the truly magnificent cover of Jason Molina’s “Hammer Down,” which paired Godwin with one of his musical heroes, Scott Avett. Godwin became fast friends with Avett after touring alongside the Avett Brothers as co-openers on Luke Combs’ 2024 Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old stadium tour. Most nights onstage, they’d duet on “Hammer Down.” It was a no-brainer then to enlist his new friend to record the song with him for Lonely Mountain Town.
Earlier this week, Godwin announced a trio of shows in May around his already announced appearance at the Highways Festival in London, UK on May 17. Godwin will play Glasgow, UK at SWG3 on May 15, Manchester, UK at Academy 2 on May 18, and Dublin, IE at Academy Main Room on May 19. Godwin will return to the UK this Summer for the Long Road Festival in Leicestershire, UK on August 23. Artist pre-sale for the Glasgow, Manchester and Dublin shows is March 5 at 10 a.m. local time, and general on sale is March 7 at 10 a.m. local time.
Godwin began his 2025 U.S. headline shows with a run of seven sold out shows last month, and he’ll be back on the road in the U.S. with a new round of headline dates, beginning March 13 in Portland, Maine. In addition to his headline shows, Godwin and his band The Allegheny High will open for The Avett Brothers on the West Coast in April, and he will also join Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan on select Outlaw Music Festival dates in July.
