‘Nashville’ star Charles Esten makes his Maui debut
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Best known for his starring role in the television series "Nashville," actor and musician Charles Esten will make his Maui debut Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa.
Esten became a household name playing Deacon Claybourne in "Nashville." Premiering in 2012, the series followed the personal and professional lives of country music stars in Tennessee's capital, with Esten portraying a gifted singer-songwriter whose turbulent journey through love, addiction, redemption and family became one of the show's emotional centerpieces.
The show's success launched Esten into a full-time music career. Following the series' finale in 2018, he began writing and releasing his own original material, and for a while held a Guinness World Record for the "most consecutive weeks releasing an original digital single by a music act."
Rather than following the traditional route of releasing an album or EP, he embarked on an ambitious project in 2018, issuing one original song weekly for over a year, resulting in 54 new singles in 54 weeks and earning him a Guinness World Record.
"I've been a songwriter my whole life, but I wasn't releasing songs," Esten said. "There's a song from the show called 'A Life That’s Good,' and there's a great line that says, 'I want to look back and say I did all that I could.' So I said, what do I need to do? I need to start putting some music out."
He announced to his social media followers, "I was going to release a brand new single every Friday. The whole thing was called Every Single Friday, and I thought I was going to do it until it was stupid. It was just an absolute monumental task, and it was so much fun. At the end, I looked back and said, nobody can ever say I didn't make the most of my time here. So there are all the singles, but I only have one album."
"Nashville" changed his life "in every way," he said. "But it wasn't some dramatic change of what I was about."
Esten had previously played Buddy Holly in a London production and recalls "playing that Stratocaster and singing songs." He spent time in the UK doing improv on the comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Other TV work included "ER" and "The Office."
"It felt like everything was a prologue to 'Nashville,' and I would not have been able to be Deacon without virtually all of those experiences," he explained. "It was like the culmination of everything that had come before."
The show's popularity opened doors in Nashville's legendary music community. "I get to play The Bluebird (Cafe) here all the time," he said. "My next time on the Grand Ole Opry will be my 195th appearance, which is a mind-blower. I just stay open and receive all these blessings."
Keeping busy, he said, "I just finished up with a 'Nashville tour,' which was me and my 'Nashville' friends touring. We toured in the UK and Germany, and we did two shows at the Ryman (Auditorium). That's one version of this musical world I get to live in, and another I have a full band that plays various gigs."
Although his concerts primarily feature his own songs, Esten enjoys reinventing classics with an occasional cover that might include a Buddy Holly or Willie Nelson song, or even Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which he performed in Manchester, England.
"I love a good cover, but I don't want to do it in just the way that the artist did," he noted. "That becomes a little bit glorified karaoke. I want to do it in a way that you haven't heard that song before. I have a mash-up where I'm playing 'Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys,' and just when everybody gets comfortable, I'm playing 'Norwegian Wood,' and they fit together perfectly."
For his Hyatt show, he will play solo. "The most important thing is connection," he said. "The solo acoustic is definitely one of my favorites. For me, it all started at The Bluebird Cafe. That kind of intimacy of that 99-seat room at the Bluebird, and a guitar and a mic, and in my case, it will also be a piano and a little harmonica or something. The connection gets a bit deeper, and the storytelling, and the improvisational nature of the night. Then, on top of that, you're in a place like Maui. There's nothing like being upstaged by everything around you."
Nashville Nights featuring Charles Esten is presented at 7 p.m. on Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa. Tickets are $93 at tinyurl.com/2vvwms6d.