This is a very pretty, very obscure (it’s not even mentioned in the Lysergia/Acid Archives book) folk album from a songwriter who lived in Cheshire, Connecticut. It was released in 1976, and definitely leans towards the downer/loner side of folk music. I would make comparisons to Nick Drake and Jackson C. Frank, but Lochner has quite a unique approach to writing and recording music. His singing is most-closely aligned with British singers: a higher-register voice with nice vibrato. His guitar playing is very, very minimal, which is where he differs from the two names mentioned before. The guitar and voice are not as baroque, but one could also compare Lochner to Sibylle Baier, the two seem to share a fondness for passionate lyricism. What’s more, both seem to be singers more than they are musicians.
There is a note from Lochner included with this LP, which reads:
“My dear friends,
In buying this record you buy a little bit of me. I ask you to handle “me” with care. I am a human being. I need to be listened to and accepted as I am. My music is on the quiet side because I am on the quiet side. I sing about love and pain, faith and freedom. That is what I am about. I sing of my struggle to love and let myself be loved. That is what we are about.
I must admit that I have always found it difficult to let others know who I am — to let them get close to me. Trusting them with my true feelings has been scary and also rare. I guess that fear has been part of my winter-life. However, something new is happening for me, and this record, though a song of Winter, is for me, one sign of Spring…
I hope and pray that you will allow this music to get close to you — close enough to free within you all those things that need to cry and sing.
– Charlie”
Charlie Lochner
Winter In My Life
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Tracklist:
01. I Love You
02. Mary Ann
03. Cara
04. Listen Rose
05. Live With Love
06. Look At The Sun
07. Someday
08. I Love You My Friend
09. Memory Fixed In Stone
10. I Awoke One Day
11. Winter In My Life
12. Shepherd Man
13. Yahweh
