ryan bingham
ryan bingham Content tagged as ryan bingham.
Wilco; Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch) BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2007
The career trajectory of Wilco, helmed by Jeff Tweedy, has been fascinating to follow, if not always easy for many. From alt.country through to ambitious and complex pop in the late 90s, they then made the "Radiohead leap" with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2002 where the experimentation, noise factor and angularity of ther material was...
music/1222/wilco-sky-blue-sky-nonesuch-best-of-elsewhere-2007/
Gary Louris: Vagabond (Ryko/Elite)
Louris was a founder of the cornerstone alt.country band the Jayhawks whose career in the 90s saw them weave their way from country-rock to post-grunge rock and sometimes pure pop They were hard to get a bead on but that was the great pleasure of their career. With the Jayhawks seemingly on hold Louris steps out for a debut album under his...
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Ryan Bingham: Mescalito (Lost Highway)
We live and we learn -- and I have been living and relearning by repeat plays of this exceptional debut by someone called Ryan Bingham of whom I know nothing. And in a way, I'm grateful he has lived whatever he has in my place. The hard lessons he seems to have learned, I'm happy to just hear from this distance. I hear dark alt.country,...
music/1516/best-of-elsewhere-2008-ryan-bingham-mescalito-lost-highway/
North Mississippi Allstars: Hernando (Songs of the South)
These Allstars aren't really, but two of them are the sons of the great James Luther Dickinson whose last album was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2007: a swirling implosion of country, psychedelic rock, blues and cornmash liquor. The boys haven't fallen too far from the tree but sometimes bring a swag more gritty psychedelic blues into the...
music/1560/north-mississippi-allstars-hernando-songs-of-the-south/
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: James McMurtry: Just Us Kids (Lightning Rod/Elite)
The murky photo of a small, barroom audience on the inner sleeve of this brittle and typically dark album by singer-poet McMurtry might have included me. It looks like it was taken in the Continental Club in Austin where I caught him and his band the Heartless Bastards a couple of years ago playing their regular gig. Since his remarkable...
music/1576/best-of-elsewhere-2008-james-mcmurtry-just-us-kids-lightning-rod-elite/
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2008: Hayes Carll: Trouble in Mind (Lost Highway)
You'd think with strip malls, fast food franchises, saturation low-cost reality television and the widespread levelling out of mainstream culture that guys like Carll would have been ironed out of American life But he's one of those crinkles in the texture, an alt.country-cum-trad.country guy who is a little early Steve Earle and Joe Ely,...
music/1590/best-of-elsewhere-2008-hayes-carll-trouble-in-mind-lost-highway/
Malcolm Holcombe: Gamblin' House (Borders)
Your first response to this gruff-voiced, whisky-stained singer-songwriter may be, "how come I haven't heard of him sooner?"Well, diligent Elsewhere listeners may well have: he appeared on the massive and ambitious Songs of America triple set which appeared here some months back. He sang The Old Woman Taught Wisdom, a song which dates...
Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses: Roadhouse Sun (Lost Highway)
American singer-songwriter Bingham's voice was so lived in and road-hardened on his debut Mescalito (a Best of Elsewhere 2008 album) that he sounded like a man far beyond his mid-20s. He seemed to have literally lived the rough roadhouse life and whisky bars that others could only suggest they had. You didn't doubt his stories of...
music/2539/ryan-bingham-and-the-dead-horses-roadhouse-sun-lost-highway/
Joe Pernice: It Feels So Good When I Stop (RedEye/Southbound)
Most of us will be at a disadvantage when it comes to this album by Joe of the very fine Pernice Brothers: these are songs to accompany his debut novel of the same name -- and my guess is it will go largely unread other than by his Serious Fans. No matter perhaps, this should work as a stand-alone item (different idiom) and it largely does as...
music/2602/joe-pernice-it-feels-so-good-when-i-stop-redeye-southbound/
Jim White: No Such Place (Luaka Bop)
Tom Waits' influence crops up in unexpected places. After his superbly titled Wrong-Eyed Jesus, the man who goes by the unmemorable nom de disque Jim White comes back for a second album of dark narratives, juke-joint folk-blues a la Tom, and disconcerting atmospheric productions on stories which begin, "Long about an hour before sunrise...
Tom Russell: Blood and Candle Smoke (Proper/Southbound)
Tom Russell is a cinematic singer-songwriter whose storytelling is compelling, and whose whisky’n’grit vocals can take you to the heart of Tex-Mex territory. The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti said he was “Johnny Cash, [poet and novelist] Jim Harrison and [barfly writer] Charles Bukowski rolled into one“. Born and...
music/2670/tom-russell-blood-and-candle-smoke-proper-southbound/
Various Artists: Introducing Townes Van Zandt via the Great Unknown (For the Sake of the Song)
The late Van Zandt is hardly the little-known cult artist he once was: there are many tribute albums (Steve Earle most recently) and his estate must coin it in from all the covers alt.country artists do. Most of Van Zandt’s originals were spare, lowkey and acoustic -- so the surprise here is what an embellishing or reconfiguring...
CHRIS WHITLEY INTERVIEWED (1991): The Law man living with the lore
Sometimes you can just get too much too soon - and the wrong kind of attention. Take American singer Chris Whitley, whose debut album Living with the Law has been picking up praise by the bucketload. Sure it’s a great album; Rolling Stone called it “riveting and original” before acclaiming Whitley as “a visionary...
absoluteelsewhere/3097/chris-whitley-interviewed-1991-the-law-man-living-with-the-lore/
BEST OF ELSEWHERE 2010 Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses: Junky Star (Lost Highway)
The name "Ryan Bingham" has been getting a lot of eartime recently -- it was the name of George Clooney's character in the movie Up in the Air. But more importantly in the real world it belongs to one of the most interesting Americana singer-songwriters of the past deacde -- the man who picked up an Oscar for his song The Weary...
music/3377/best-of-elsewhere-2010-ryan-bingham-and-the-dead-horses-junky-star-lost-highway/
Lee Clayton: Industry (live, 1989)
Rocking country singer Lee Clayton out of Alabama and Tennessee almost made the big time at the end of the Seventies with two exceptional albums, Border Affair and Naked Child. In some ways he was ahead of his time and if they had arrrived around the same time as James McMurtry, Chris Whitley and a few others a decade later he might have...
JAMES McMURTRY INTERVIEWED (1990): In from the wasteland
The literary landscape of the American south sets it apart from that of the rest of the country. The hard indifference of William Faulkner’s world is reflected in his lean poetic writing; the inhospitable, suspicious small towns and brooding menace stand stark in Eudora Welty’s stories, and crippling heat brings sweat and...
absoluteelsewhere/3493/james-mcmurtry-interviewed-1990-in-from-the-wasteland/
Justin Townes Earle: Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot/Southbound)
Over three previous albums this son of Steve (and named for Townes Van Zandt) has cut an increasingly confident path with originals which are nominally country-Americana but refer to alt.rock, bluegrass, honky-tonk, ragtime and Hank Williams-styled truck-stop rock. His shows here have been popular and on this album he slips in the...
music/3526/justin-townes-earle-harlem-river-blues-bloodshot-southbound/
Barry Saunders: Far As The Eye Can See (Ode)
More than just a compilation of tracks from his various albums and radio sessions (including some from his excellent Zodiac album), this collection of songs by country-inflected singer-songwriter Saunders was a prompt for various painters and visual artists. Wellington curator Ron Epskamp of Exhibitions Gallery (here) invited 14 artists to...
Andrew McKenzie: The Edge of the World (Arch Hill)
Andrew McKenzie is the singer-guitarist in the New Zealand band Grand Prix which has long delivered a very pointed kind of slightly snarling alt.country with a rock'n'roll heartbeat and a dark, unsettling edge. For this album under his own name McKenzie (who plays almost everything from drums and bass to harmonica and sitar) mines some of...
Matt Langley: Featherbones (Hometown)
Langley's rootsy folk-cum-alt.country EP Lost Companions of 2007 – recorded in Wellington – announced a mature lyricist and a singer with a delivery like the best Americana artists (James McMurtry particularly) with a little Dylanesque drawl. It went past most, and this debut album is doing the same with few mainstream media...
THE FAMOUS ELSEWHERE QUESTIONNAIRE: Matt Langley
Matt Langley from Dunedin, New Zealand is one of the smaller but brightest lights on the musical landscape. His debut EP Lost Companions was critically well received but his album Featherbones showed the full measure of his talents which touch on folk, blues and alt.country. He does things the old fashioned way which others are now...
thefamouselsewherequestionnaire/4012/the-famous-elsewhere-questionnaire-matt-langley/
The Thomas Oliver Band: Baby, I'll Play (Rhythmethod)
As with his fellow Wellingtonian Darren Watson, Thomas Oliver is a finalist in the blues category of the International Song Writing Competition to be judged in April 2011. The song is Goin' Home - which kicks off this rootsy, bluesy and alt.country-tinged album -- and the video of it released a year ago was named among the top 30...
music/4019/the-thomas-oliver-band-baby-ill-play-rhythmethod/
Sean Rowe: Magic (Anti)
Because of the nature of his burred baritone -- and these profound and emotionally deep songs -- it would be wrong to say this debut by New York singer-songwriter Rowe is "exciting". That might give the impression of pulse-racing music . . . and this isn't like that at all. Quite the opposite, it can be heart-stopping. But...
The Felice Brothers: Celebration, Florida (Spunk)
While it's interesting to read in a promo slip that this new album by the so-far fascinating Felice Brothers "casts scenes of dreamy characters and stories interwoven like a block of primetime TV", this is promo-hype. It presumes you will actually be engaged enough to listen with unswerving intensity through the sonic haze of...
Joe Ely: Satisfied at Last (Rack 'Em Records/Southbound)
The very good news is that the great Joe Ely -- who has delivered a few patchy albums in the past decade -- doesn't sound at all "satisfied" as the album's title would suggest. In fact from the opener The Highway is My Home to Butch Hancock's Circumstance 40 minutes later this tight'n'tidy 10 song collection has much of the old...
music/4259/joe-ely-satisfied-at-last-rack-em-records-southbound/
Jeff Bridges: Jeff Bridges (Blue Note)
After his multiple awards-winning turn as broken down country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, and the spin-off T Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack, there should be interest in this (also produced by Burnett) where Bridges again sings persuasively on originals and material by John Goodwin, Stephen Bruton (who wrote most of the Crazy Heart...
Tom Russell: Mesabi (Proper)
Although American singer-songwriter Tom Russell's name isn't as widely known as that of Joe Ely, Townes Van Zandt and others, his songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Peter Case, Iris DeMent and many more, and his story-telling tied to a backbeat has consistently drawn praise from critics and peers. Jerry Jeff Walker, poet Lawrence...
Chris Smither: Leave The Light On (Shock)
Smith is a grizzled-sounding roots-country singer whose spare songs glisten with his guitar playing, and whose baritone sounds whiskey-cured and filled with gravitas. He's no chicken (he's 62 and recorded his first album 33 years ago), but that only adds to his authentic, throaty country-blues which owes debts to Mississippi John Hurt, but...
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