Will Charles

www.will-charles.com

Growing up in Los Angeles, Will Charles found his way into a quaint record store on Hollywood Boulevard called Record Paradise, where he got a job as a part-time stock boy at age 13. Having access to an endless array of music changed his life forever. It unearthed a depth of emotion that was soon to be expressed in his own songwriting, musical voice and guitar playing.

Over the decades, when not playing live around LA, Will ran a sound engineering and recording studio in the Bing Crosby Building across from Whiskey a Go-Go along Sunset Boulevard. Not a name dropper, Will prefers to say that he’s been blessed to hang out with and even jam alongside many of the world’s great icons of R&B, rock and progressive music.

A handful of these artistic masters have been “not influences but influencing” to Will’s spontaneous, flowing style, which defies labeling. Let’s just call it Free Will. If you like the substance of Bob Dylan, evocativeness of Leonard Cohen, compassion of Cat Stevens, and romantic mojo of Marvin Gaye and vintage Motown artists, have a listen to Will’s playlist.

Say what you, Will? “The litmus test is if the music touches you at a deep level, if your ear pulls you to it and it makes you want to dance, shout, sing, weep or otherwise FEEL something,” he shares. “I write to a feeling, to shake people from complacency and help them express their own emotions.”

“I, for one, am tired and bored with what passes for songwriting these days—all the nasty, angry, shallow music that is basically slow-mo, strip-porn on video,” Will concludes. “We’ve lost the romanticism. Artists are so over-commercialized that everyone sounds like everyone else. Yea, the music industry is pretty twisted right now. I want to untwist it with music that is open, loving and genuinely caring to and about others.”

Will lives on the Island of Kauai, Hawaii, where he imagines, sleeps, dreams and plays against a backdrop of crystal blue shorelines, soaring cliffs, vast chasms and lush flora.