…OF AN OCEAN CROSSING

Adrian Walters is a songwriter from Nottingham in the United Kingdom who draws influence from English folk and Americana traditions. After swapping the banks of the River Trent for the shores of Lake Michigan in the summer of 2011, he fell under the spell of Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, relearned the guitar, and began writing songs and performing (reluctantly at first) at venues on Chicago’s north side.

Starting Somewhere (2020) is a meditation on the people, places, situations, relationships, and memories of Adrian's former life in England. The album was recorded, produced, and arranged by Steve Dawson (Dolly Varden, Funeral Bonsai Wedding) at Kernel Sound Emporium in Chicago.

Album single ‘The Ballad of Ian Bowyer’ tells the story of a journeyman soccer player who, in the late-1970s, helped transform Adrian’s hometown professional soccer team, Nottingham Forest FC, from also-rans to European champions. Like so many of the songs from Starting Somewhere, ‘Bowyer’ pays attention to human qualities such as steadiness and dependability that, in the incessant contemporary search for meaning and novelty, are often overlooked.