WELCOME TO THE TWO WAY STREET COFFEE HOUSE FRIDAY NIGHT SERIES!

For nearly a decade, Chris Rawlins has been quietly writing, performing, and singing his songs, earning the attention of one listener after another as he’s matured into one of the finest songwriters to claim a space in the Americana music realm. He listens to the past while grounded in the present, and writes songs that sound both familiar and innovative.

Rawlins has gone from open mic nights to regional and national tours, and from bedroom demos to a debut album, Bring on the Rain, that Americana UK deemed “rich and unforgettable.” He remains determined to grow artistically and professionally, and his latest release, Flyover, is a perfect example of that ambition.

Flyover is all about growth and change, but it’s also a homecoming. Growing up in the Midwest was full of longing— Rawlins was raised in Kalamazoo, MI and left for New York City at the earliest opportunity. When the East Coast became more and more expensive and unfeasible, he begrudgingly returned home, but soon found his way to Chicago, where the city and music community offered a welcome blend of wonder and familiarity. “It took me a long time to appreciate the Midwest… to begin with, not as many people as you’d think even know how to define it. Is it the area around the Great Lakes? Is it the Plains? Is part of it in Canada? Or is it just corn fields and being polite? And if you add the fact that it’s known as, ‘fly over country,’ I think it leaves a lot to the imagination, and a lot for you to define for yourself, which it turns out has so much to do with how I think about songwriting, and the nature of art.”

The songs on Flyover are a love letter to the Midwest but also a discontentment towards it. The lyrics are filled with meditations on urban renewal, loss and rebirth, and wistfulness mixed with the fear of complacency. Rawlins conjures the indefinable yet familiar mood of a region that has the feeling of returning to a childhood home— sleeping in a bed that seems too small, trying to reconnect with a past you’ve left behind, a nostalgic creak in the floorboards that brings back memories of sneaking out of your parent’s home for the freedom of a summer night.

With the help of John Abbey at Kingsize Sound Labs in Chicago, recording for the album began in the Fall of 2022 and slowly continued, one song, or sometimes one instrument at a time until the Spring of 2025. 

“The thread that kept me going during the long recording process was the photograph that I chose for the album cover. A black and white aerial photo that my father took of farmland in Southwest Michigan— it feels eerie yet peaceful at the same time. I knew the songs felt tied to the region I grew up in and I wanted the sound of the album to feel like it could fill up and reverberate through a wide open, midwestern landscape. I showed the picture to John Abbey, who was masterful at tapping into the sound I had in mind, from mic and reverb choices to thinking through instrumentation. Somehow he captured the mood of that photograph into sound.”

Flyover will be released on October 24th, 2025. Chris Rawlins continues to reside in Chicago with his wife, a growing record collection, and way too many guitars.