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PAUL WESLEY
When I Let Go
Independent
(Release Date: 3/31/09)

Texas native Paul Wesley grew up around music—his mother played piano in church, and at age 12 he bought his first guitar with money he saved up by mowing lawns. It was at this point his mother sat him down and forbade him from playing "the devil's music."

Her warning lasted about as long as a '60s bubblegum pop song and Wesley formed a band with his best friend. Years later, he has recorded his first album, When I Let Go, in a process that's taken nearly a decade—mostly due to the time he spent trying to record it by himself before turning to the professionals.

With help from over 40 artists such as Dustin Tanner, Bruce Robison, Allison Russell, Bukka Allen, Tosca Strings, and Warren Hood he winds together twelve songs of love, rejection, betrayal, and forgiveness. Cuts like the opening track, "Evangeline," are flavored with gospel while others ("Pretend," "Allie's Song") are more rock, with an almost Springsteen-vibe.

"'I Can't Explain' is probably the most stripped down and the most personal," Wesley said about his favorite track. "I probably sat down and wrote that song in a few hours, but the relationship that I wrote it about had ended four or five years before that."

The mix of the upbeat with more somber tunes ("Christmas Eve, 1992") makes this first record from a new singer-songwriter a pleasant listen even with the occasional low point ("Fourth Street (Redux))."