Music

With a new EP on the way, Charles Wesley Godwin charts his journey so far

WSHU | By Raina Douris,

Published February 12, 2025 at 7:00 AM EST

Born and raised in West Virginia, Charles Wesley Godwin is the son of a coal miner and a teacher. That might sound like a fairly normal beginning for a country folk artist, but for a long time, no one would have predicted he'd end up opening shows for artists like Luke Combs or Jason Isbell.

In this session, Godwin walks us through his journey so far, from his days as a football hopeful and studying in Estonia to starting a family and releasing his album, Family Ties, in 2023.

He'll also talk about his upcoming EP, Lonely Mountain Town. Godwin performs in front of a live audience at World Cafe, including the live debut of one of the songs from his new EP, out Feb. 28.

Set List

"All Again"
"Miner Imperfections"
"The Flood"
"It's The Little Things"

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

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Music World Cafe

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She is also involved with Canada's highest music honors: Since 2017, she has hosted the Polaris Music Prize Gala, for which she is also a jury member, and she has also been a jury member for the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod