Charlie Winton picked up a guitar decades before most people had any reason to know his name, and for most of that time, music wasn’t even his day job. He spent years running Publishers Group West as its chairman and CEO, eventually splitting the company into several imprints that still shape the publishing world today, all while quietly writing and playing on the side, working out a rough, soulful strain of Americana rock influenced by heroes like Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Tom Waits. When he finally stepped away from that career in 2016, he didn’t ease into retirement, he started an entirely new one, teaming up with Bay Area producer Scott Mathews, whose past studio credits include Brian Wilson, Van Morrison, Jack Nitzsche, and Elvis Costello, to actually put that sound on tape. Now 73, Winton has three albums out since then, each more reflective than the last, with a fourth, “Shadowland,” already on the way as the follow-up to 2024’s “Eternal Light.”
Rising Tide
“Rising Tide” rides in on a single aching guitar riff and never really lets go of that mood for the rest of the song. There’s a real Dylan-and-Springsteen streak running through it, the kind of writing that treats life as something worth turning over in your head even when it doesn’t hand you any answers. Winton’s voice is weathered and unpolished, riding over a loose, unhurried rhythm section and guitar work that’s left rough around the edges on purpose, and he sounds like a man weighing the past against the present at the same time, without pretending to have it all sorted out. The song’s whole argument, boiled down, is that it’s never too late to set something right, even while the clock keeps moving whether you’re ready for it or not.
The video was released through Melatron Music and put together under the direction of Jack Winton, Charlie’s son, and it stays deliberately simple as his first official music video. It’s built around Winton and Mathews just performing the song together, with small flashes of light and passing glimpses of memory cutting in and out, while a ticking clock keeps interrupting the moment as a reminder that none of it lasts. Having his own son behind the camera adds an extra layer to a video that’s already about looking back across a lifetime, present, and future all at once. That push and pull between hope and running out of time is really the whole point, and the song lands on something close to a plea to make the most of whatever time’s left, however much or little that ends up being.
Final Thoughts
“Rising Tide” is a strong first video from an artist who’s clearly still finding new range this deep into a long career, and it makes a solid case for keeping an eye out for “Shadowland” whenever it lands.
You can find Charlie Winton on his official website, on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. What did you think of the new video? Stay tuned to MusicOnTheRox.com for all your music news and reviews.
