Wyatt Easterling - From Where I Stand (2022) Hi Res

Easterling is an older troubadour, songwriter & producer — but his warm vocal exudes experience & skillful singing & he can kick. While not as deep-voiced as Roger Whittaker, Wyatt approaches that shading with confidence especially in “From Where I Stand.” This is expertly written & the musicians provide exceptional backing.

Subject-wise Wyatt touches on the basics – love, loss, having to move on, freedom of speech & matters that listeners can relate to. There’s little imaginative wordplay & controversy but “I Know Who You Are,” has the songwriting finesse of the serious late Roger Miller (“River In the Rain”). This is where Wyatt resides in musical hothouses that result in musical blooms.

Wyatt first came to Nashville as a folk singer on the verge of signing with CBS Records, but in true industry fashion, Sony acquired the label, and the deal fell through. Undeterred, he signed on as a writer with a new publishing company opened by former CBS label head Rick Blackburn.

After a couple of years there, Blackburn brought him on as head of A&R at Atlantic Records where Wyatt signed some of country music’s biggest names including John Michael Montgomery, Tracy Lawrence, Michael Johnson and Neal McCoy. He also began working as a producer, guiding Montgomery’s debut album Life’s A Dance to an impressive three million copies sold. After Atlantic, Wyatt opened Bugle Publishing Group with partner Miles Copeland, where he signed a number of artists, most notably Keith Urban, Paul Jefferson and Paul Thorn. At Bugle, Wyatt also produced Thorn’s debut album Hammer and Nail and got the future superstar Urban his first record deal.

During that period, Wyatt and Miles had the inventive idea to turn a chateau in the south of France into a writers’ den they called “The Castle” where they began pairing their Nashville songwriters with big name artists like Carole King, Cher, Peter Frampton and Olivia Newton John. In time, Wyatt was ready to move on from the publishing world, and he signed as a writer with DreamWorks Publishing, API and EMI where he had numerous songs recorded by the likes of Dierks Bentley and Joe Diffie, including the gorgeous title track from Bentley’s album Modern Day Drifter.

After all of his time navigating the many facets of the music industry, it turns out his true destination was in fact to be a singer-songwriter. He started touring, including consecutive appearances as a finalist in the prestigious Kerrville New Folk contest, and he’s since recorded his two beautiful albums Where This River Goes and Goodbye, Hello. And now happily we have a third collection of songs by Wyatt Easterling in Divining Rod that we can all listen to it for years to come.