IAC 2018
Letters To Maria
Dedicated to someone special, a new diary from Modesto troubadour, detailing his return to the world of smiles.
Those weren’t the best days for Willie Hines who literally struggled to see the light after eye surgeries and to break free from the confines of his world with a broken foot, so it took an arrival of a woman in the artist’s life to raise his spirits and start to write songs again – each one charting the route to recovery and the development of romance. Addressed to Hines’ muse, these might be melodious letters, yet Willie wouldn’t limit lyrical missives to particular mood.
That’s why serenades such as the cello-adorned “This Is Our Love” are but a single aspect of emotional spectrum he’s unfolding for all to behold, even though an aorta-cleansing AOR crunch of opener “(I’m Not Waiting For The) Heartbreak” is quite unexpected and robust riffs often make room for acoustic caress further down the line. Still, it’s domestic details in the folk-influenced, infectious likes of “Little Tin Cup” which will endear the listener to this album, and while “Let’s Not Waste Time” informs the electric flow with the sense of here and now, the harmony guitars and flamenco-styled solo on “Standing At The Altar” stress the singer’s bliss.
Of course, there’s sweet pining, too, and the country-tinctured “Waiting For A Miracle” serves the expectancy in spades, yet “The Tenth Letter” – a voice-and-piano hymn – wraps this future-in-the-past into something truly spiritual. The entire epistolary experience is merely immortalizing it, or making it simple and easy to relate to. Adorable.
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