If there is a line that perfectly sums up the resilience needed by a gigging musician, the best one I’ve ever heard has to be “They don’t clap, you still bow” from Illinois-born, Texas country-sounding and based singer-songwriter Charlie Shafter’s song ‘Sea Wall’. Taken from his 2012 self-titled debut album, the song isn’t actually about being a touring artist, instead it’s a winding, stream of consciousness love letter to a past relationship, but it’s proof us Shafter’s skill as a songwriter that he’s able to slip a line so powerful, but also versatile in the chorus.
When I say “Charlie Shafter” was his debut, that’s only true in the sense of it being his first album as a strictly solo artist, because before then, there was the Charlie Shafter Band. As a group, they released the now impossible-to-find “Orange” in 2005 and the more readily accessible “17th & Chicago” in 2008. There is no doubt that as part of the band, Shafter put out some solid material, but my personal favourite might just be the brilliantly titled ‘Lately (When You Still Believed in Unicorns)’: it’s a tale of love enduring life’s hardships, first very everyman issues like financial problems, but it’s when it gets more specific that it really takes off. “You quit school when I joined the Corp / Because the baby was young / And needed lookin’ out for,” states Shafter, conjuring up shades of his heroes like Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt. “There was an accident / Now I can’t work no more”.
(In case you’re wondering, the clever reference to unicorns makes sense later once Shafter lets us know that the person he loves was abandoned by their father, although they still hoped he might return, “but that was back when [they] still believed in unicorns”.)
It was when Shafter released his second album, “When I Was Yours & You Were Mine”, in 2019 that I discovered his music. I think it’s fair to say that the album helped sustain me throughout lockdown and beyond, and almost six years later, it still sounds fresh as ever in the way classic songwriting always does. The album’s title actually comes from a line in two songs, one being the rambling ‘Chainsaw’ (“I had a dream that I bought you a chainsaw / And we moved up north to the pines / And were raising two young children / And I was yours and you were mine”) and the other ‘Leave Her Wild’ (“We sure had ourselves a time / When I was yours and you were mine”), a song with a howling yodel and a beat so irresistibly catchy that it’s actually shocking to me that it didn’t gain more mainstream traction. “We went out wearin’ wigs / With that tattoo on your ribs / Love her, but leave her wild,” goes the chorus, which could sound trite in the wrong hands, but with Shafter it feels completely authentic.
It’s an album that proves Shafter is a versatile and talented songwriter, with songs ranging from the banjo-heavy, observational ‘Old Time Religion’ (“Mary works a combine and speaks every day to Jesus / She’s good for a joke but rarely a smile”), the easy rumination of ‘Baltimore’ (“Never been to Baltimore / But I’ve seen ‘The Wire’ and read Poe”) and the wise, curt advice of ‘Savannah’ (“Savannah, get back where you belong / It’s too cold in Minnesota / And the winter’s coming on”). Shafter might just be at his best however when he’s at his most devastating like on ‘Thought Too Soon’: “I thought the light was the moon / When I woke it was noon / I thought the grass was immune / But it died late June,” he begins before admitting, like a knife to the heart that “I thought you loved me / But I thought too soon.”
Things have been pretty quiet as regards to new music from Shafter in the years since the pandemic hit, but a look at his Instagram bio promises that a new album will be coming “fall 2025”. I’m pretty excited to finally get new music from him, and I will most definitely be clapping in response.
Thanks very much for a well written article about an artist who I’d not heard of or come across. I very much enjoyed your selections of his music and have now signed up for updates on his website Thank you !
Ditto. A new name to me … but on the strength of these tracks I too will definitely look to hear a lot more. Thanks Helen.