Charles Ellsworth’s own story is as rich and winding as the stories he weaves in his songs. Raised on Mormon hymns in the White Mountains of Arizona, he was turned onto alt-rock in his teens, toured the West Coast in a band as a high-schooler, moved to Salt Lake City for film school where he found success as a singer/songwriter, toured the US and Australia for several years, and wound up—so far—in Brooklyn.

A self-described “recovering toxic sadboy,” Ellsworth’s music has evolved with him. His tales of heartbreak and loneliness focus on the positives of the human spirit, while revisiting the roots music of his upbringing and melding it with modern influence to create a new, alt-country sound.

Ever the storyteller, Ellsworth told Elmore how this musical tale came to be:

“The song ‘Miami, AZ’ was nearly a lifetime in the making. The town I grew up in is about a three-hour drive from the Phoenix area, and right around the halfway point is the town of Miami. It’s a small mining town that gets swallowed up by the recognition of the slightly larger Globe, AZ. I remember one time driving through Miami, AZ the year that Will Smith ruled the planet and his hit song “Miami” came on. No more than 10 years old at the time, I thought the contrast was hilarious. I wanted to shoot a music video in Miami, AZ using the song Miami. While I didn’t have the means, or even the slightest clue how to do any of that (YouTube wouldn’t be invented for nearly a decade), I kept the idea in my back pocket all that time.”

In 2013, with abortion issues in hot dispute, pro-choice Ellsworth considered his childhood friends’ upbringing. “I thought of the kids I knew raised in overbearing Christian households. The simultaneous reverence and disgust in which they held their parents. The bastardized dogma their parent’s used to shame them into conformity. I imagined two high school kids faced with a choice to accept the life their parent’s politics and religion had given them, or a chance to get the fuck out of town and figure something out.

“I wrote the words, Joe Reinhart deserves the credit for getting the song to sound like it does. Lucy Stone’s backing vocals and Mike Brenner’s pedal steel laid it all out for me, then I just did my best Tom Petty impression to sell the story.”

Ellsworth recruited fellow Brooklyn musicians Jared Schapker (Grandpa Jack) and Blake Suben (Dirty Bird) with Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Algernon Cadwallader) to help him record for this forthcoming album. Honeysuckle Summer will be available on vinyl, CD and digital/streaming platforms March 5th via Burro Borracho Records.

Learn more about Charles Ellsworth HERE
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