The years 1992-1994 could easily be called the quintessential Vince Charming years. These years saw me writing at an unprecedented rate as well as really coming into my own as a solo, acoustic performer. I managed to write a mind-boggling 47 sets of lyrics, 44 of which eventually gained musical accompaniment including 3 that were co-written with my songwriting partner of the early nineties, Jody Salino (aka "The Groovemeister"). It's amazing what both love and pain can do for a writer! More significant is that out of those 44 songs, about fifteen remained a key part of my live repertoire for the following ten to fifteen years.

This side features four of those songs which when put together, tell the story a great yet tragic love affair from hopeful beginning, to its romantic peak, to a sad aftermath, and finally to the desolate wasteland that was my life a year later. Both "Country Greens & Blues" and "Helpless, Hopeless Romantic" have been in nearly every single setlist from every live show I have done since they were written and they remain two of my most popular songs as well as my personal favorites. Both "No Answer", though somewhat rarely performed, is one of my more creative compositions from a guitar standpoint and "The Shadowlands" with its somber tone, cinematic references, and emotinal expressionism really do typify the "sensitive singer/songwriter" model that I so aspired to be during those days. Though they all were born in my coffee house days as a solo performer, the first two songs really were transformed by the New Americans and these recordings show that transformation and could also have fit well on side one. The last two songs, in a harkening back to those "solo" years, are performed entirely by me except for Angela's "forlorn" violin on the bridge of "The Shadowlands".

Country Greens & Blues

Helpless, Hopless, Romantic

No Answer

The Shadowlands

Vince Charming....Neo-Americana music for the New Millennium

All contents copyright 2008 Charming Productions