Americana royalty teams up with a cracking Texas band to produce a varied and highly enjoyable mix of country, soul and stomp.
Ryan Bingham is a comparatively rare example of an americana artist who has broken into mainstream consciousness, with a ‘Best Song’ Oscar, Critics’ Choice award, and a Golden Globe under his belt in 2010 for The Weary Kind (from Crazy Heart, co-written with T-Bone Burnett), and then his acting role in the Paramount hit show, Yellowstone. His breakthrough came after he spent several years drifting as a roving ranch worker and participating in rodeo competitions during which time he began entertaining friends with his guitar playing, and then playing his songs at a bar in Stephenville, Texas. This led to some self-released albums which came to the attention of Lost Highway Records, who signed him up, and so he embarked on his rise to stardom at a fairly mature age. So, not the sort of ‘journey’ one might hear from a Britain’s Got Talent hopeful.
All this has imbued his music with a sense of hard-earned, worldly experience. Since swapping bucking broncos for recording studios, he has put together a fine musical CV with a string of eight albums, starting with 2007’s Mescalito.
On this latest album, he has joined forces with a Texas band called (appropriately) The Texas Gentlemen after they backed Bingham at a number of shows (which resulted in a live album, Live At Red Rocks, in 2024). The Gentlemen (Ryan Ake on guitars, Daniel Creamer on piano and organ, Paul Grass on drums and percussion, and Scott Lee on bass, together with Richard Bowden on fiddle and mandolin and Cody Huggins on electric and acoustic guitars and pedal steel) have produced a couple of records under their own name, which are an entertaining and versatile hotchpotch of musical genres; soul, country, bluegrass, prog-rock, you name it, they play it. They hail from Dallas, and they are renowned studio and touring musicians who have backed a bewildering range of high-profile artists, from Ed Sheeran to George Strait, and Kris Kristofferson to Brian Seltzer. And now, Ryan Bingham.
The marriage has worked, and this record is an endearing mix of bar-room stomp and atmospheric personal and ‘story’ songs. Ryan Bingham may sound as if he is contractually obliged only to record his vocals immediately after his return from a week’s stag do in Vegas, but his rasping voice successfully carries his melodies and personal lyrics with soulful aplomb. Bingham and his newfound compadres convey a clear sense of enjoyment in their work.
The album kicks off with The Lucky Ones, a road song set to an insistent strum and drum backbeat. It then opens out with a couple of rowdy bar-room, Texas stomps called Let The Big Dog Eat and I Got A Feeling, which will doubtless be live favourites. Twist The Knife sounds like a Bob Dylan song (complete with harmonica intervention). Americana returns us to a more straightforward country chugger: “gonna drink some beer/shoot some guns/ain’t nobody gonna spoil our fun”, which pokes gentle fun at good ol’ boys.
Cocaine Charlie is a more complex and moving story song about the perils of mixing love and drug running, the atmosphere enhanced by its violin work. Blue Skies is a love song, “I wouldn’t trade a blue sky, honey, for the way I feel for you”. Relevance ups the tempo while pondering whether there is a point to anything without love; “What’s the relevance if you don’t want his love”. The Ballad of the Texas Gentlemen is a hymn to the joy of playing on the road with a band. The album signs off with I’m a Goin’ Nowhere, which cheerfully makes it clear that he wants his loved one to come along as he hits the road (and, indeed, in life). The track ends with the band whooping and hollering as it plays out.
All in all, then, a very enjoyable album from an artist and band revelling in each other’s company, and making excellent music. It sounds good coming out of home speakers, and probably sounds even better live.
