Alex McEwan is songwriter of rare and special skills, an Americana-channelling Scotsman with a warm, enriching voiceand a deft way with a lyric that cuts straight to the heart. And on his upcoming second album,‘In A World We Don’t Know’, this roaming, roving troubadour distills a lifetime of loves, losses and lessons into 10 perfectly wrought songs.

 

Even more remarkably, McEwan has pulled together this album under his own steam, at his own cost (he’s artist , manager, label-runner, chief cook and bottle-washer), to his own vision, within the restrictions of lock down, from the kitchen table in the cottage in the Home Counties countryside that he shares with his wife.

 

From Kent to the cosmos: these are melodically rich songs that speak to eternal truths, with deathless wonder, for anyone who loves a classic song, an intuitive connection and an instant singalong.

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He starts as he means to go on with Bee In A Honey Pot, the effortlessly lovely track that opens the album. As ever with McEwan, he wears his heart and his art on his sleeve.

 

“It’s a song about time and how limited our time on earth is,” explains the singer/songwriter from Glasgow. “About feeling free, and about the person you love. And given what we’ve all been through in the last three years, it speaks to a desire to feel free again, like we were as kids. But,” he adds, smiling, “it’s also a love song to my wife.”

 

Then there’s the title track, an immediate stand out, with a big, easy, enveloping chorus that evokes the effortlessly feel good vibes of Jack Johnson. “A lot of people are liking that,” says this artist for whom listener connection is a foundation of every thing he does. “I’m getting a great response on Facebook, particularly from American fans. But, aye, everyone likes that one.”

A sense of love, of passion, of the connections and uplift that music gives us, has always driven Alex McEwan. It gifted him horizons beyond his immediate surroundings. Growing up in Glasgow, his life was lit up by the music his mum played as she set about the housework.

 

“My mother would clean the house listening to Johnny Cash, or Glen Campbell, or Dolly Parton. And that sort of music stuck in my head, probably because of my mother’s influence.”

 

When he picked up guitar, aged 13, he instantly went to the source–no matter how tricky for his untrained fingers.

 

“I started guitar by learning Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd,” he recalls with a rueful grin. “I remember my guitar teacher coming round, showing me that, and I was just mesmerised, and determined to learn it – difficult though it is! So that was probably an entry point into southern rock, country and Americana–all that good stuff!”

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A few years later, he started playing electric guitar, too.

 

“Then my mother and my grandmother died a few months apart. I’d never seen death in my family, and I turned to the guitar to, if you like, soothe my soul. And I got more into writing songs as well. And what came out started sounding like country music or Americana."

 

For McEwan, that was a broad church. He was inspired by Scotland's own Del Amitri, notably their classic albums Waking Hours and Change Everything. He hoovered up everything from Tracey Chapman to Bruce Springsteen, REM to early Neil Young. “I think I learned every song on Harvest and After the Goldrush. And you can’t beat a bit of vintage Springsteen–I’ve been doing my version of My Hometown on Facebook recently.”

 

McEwan was a dreamer, but also a realist–he worked as an engineer and trained as a teacher. But music was his constant backbeat, his heartbeat. Having moved down south, he performed whenever and wherever he could. He busked on the London Underground and frequented Denmark Street’s storied 12 Bar Club, a venue that celebrated all kinds of folk-rock and Americana.​

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Then, on the advice of a record company executive who was impressed by what he heard, McEwan headed to Nashville–his trip largely funded by the proceeds of his busking.

 

“I went there, stayed for a month, hung out, soaked in as much as I could on Music Row,” he says. Meanwhile, hisunerring ability to make musical connections saw him hook up with Lou Natkin, the Brian Wilson collaborator and JoanJett guitarist. The pairmade a demo which helped McEwan land a deal with independent label Forge Records.

 

The resulting debut album Beautiful Lies saw McEwan become a mainstay of Radio 2 playlists, with Terry Wogan, JaniceLong, Jeremy Vine and Steve Wright all enthusiastically spinning the single Make a Wave. The resulting nationalexposure secured McEwan a slot on a UK and Ireland tour with Katie Melua, gifting the Scotsman 60,000 new fans.