Ojai singer-songwriter Beckett McDowell is a hometown prodigy on the cusp of his career. He has been opening for Dave Mason, of Traffic fame, as his first two singles, "Weirdo," and "Pale Blue Eyes" rack up views and downloads by the thousands. 

Though only 18, McDowell has put in the hours, playing 300 shows at The Vine on Mondays, for the "Young Ones" open mic night, as well as coming out on stage to sing with Eric Burdon of the Animals. He also sang "Jailhouse Rock" at age 5 in front of a thousand fans at Libbey Bowl. His homegrown talents have been helped by Mason and Burdon, as well as Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan fame, who wrote "Weirdo" with Simple Plan bandmates. The video of his original song, "Pale Blue Eyes," features his famous father Malcolm, in "Pale Blue Eyes," a tearjerker of a song with Malcolm overflowing with emotion up as Beckett sings poignant lyrics. Something told me it was over / when you didn't even call me / Now I'm out and alone forever / And I'm tired. 

McDowell comes on the Ojai podcast, Talk of the Town, to talk about his new eight-song EP, hanging with his famous father, Malcolm, and growing up in Ojai. Once described as Ed Sheeran's "handsomer little brother," Beckett has been on the road for a slate of shows in May and June. We also talked about Bob Dylan, rare guitars, Ojai pizza and his having not ever seen "A Clockwork Orange." 

We did not talk about dolphin mimicry, NLP or Rumi's poetry. You can check out Beckett on Youtube, where he has a series of performances filmed at Norman's Rare Guitars in Los Angeles, and his Instagram @beckettrex.