Ryan Bingham

10.18.2007 -- Review by: Don Henry Ford Jr

Lost Highway records picked up Ryan Bingham, re-tooled some of his previously released songs (that almost no one has heard anyway), and added new works to come up with one hell of a good CD.

Following is an article I wrote on Ryan for Mavrik Magazine (now LoneStarMusic Magazine) last year. And here�s an interview by Michael Devers, from the Lonestarmusic store web-site.

Ryan really is that good.

Ryan Bingham

Since I began writing for Americanaroots.com, I get opportunities to write about lots of musicians. I pass on most of them. It�s not that the artists don�t deserve my time. But they are many and my schedule is full. The truth is, unless someone really moves me, I can�t do justice to them. Ryan Bingham�s music came along and speared me through the heart. I was left with no choice but to drop what I was doing and try to understand why.

Maybe it was the common ingredients Ryan and I share: we hail from the same geographical region and a similar background, but I think there�s more to it than that. I daresay others will also find a note of commonality with this man and his music. Ryan reminds me of another poet�the young Bob Dylan. Unlike Dylan, Ryan wears boots, a cowboy hat and jeans with traces of desert wind, dirt, sweat and maybe even a distant whiff of cow shit and spent oil. His roots go back to arid plains of Eastern New Mexico, dry desert mountains of far West Texas and the hardscrabble border region of Northern Mexico. But a gravely voice similar to young Dylan�s: similar depth, vision and feeling lives in Ryan�s songs. There�s something cool about the guy. Hard to put a finger on what it is, but it�s undeniable. For whatever reason, the good Lord chose this young man and blessed him with a spirit wiser than even he realizes. His words are not entirely his own.

In Ryan�s voice, I hear a spokesman for a generation. Such a gift is rarely bestowed on those from privileged background and carries with it a curse of equal weight. To see and understand the human condition to the degree he does comes with a price. Ryan, like my own children, suffered in the land of plenty. He had a front row seat to a world of hard drinking, drugs, sex, and wild and reckless lifestyles as a young man�some would say as a child. Remnants of those trials and experiences find their way into his music. But unlike others, Ryan was not consumed by this fire but instead distilled by it. What�s left is a concentrated spirit�hearing him sing is not unlike taking a shot of moonshine whisky�hard to ignore.

Nowadays most kids live pampered lives in a chrome and plastic world plugged into electronic gadgets. Many learn to play instruments, write songs and sing but few have lived a life worthy of writing or singing about. The lessons Ryan delivers aren�t taught in school; no college degree bestows the wisdom he has found; no amount of money creates the bearing with which he walks, nor does a big time recording contract provide the authority with which he sings. His gift can�t be bought. It has to be earned and the cost is more than most are willing or able to pay.

You scoff? How about this? Eat out of a tip jar and a bucket of change. Sleep without a roof to call your own. No steady girlfriend because most of them can�t accept the lifestyle. What do you mean no bathroom? Crawl on man-killing bulls in Mexican rodeos for enough Pesos to buy a bottle of booze. Then laugh as you spit out your own front teeth or drive from one hospital to another to get the shattered bones in your hand reassembled. Fix broke down vehicles on the side of the road without proper tools or parts, maybe in the rain or the cold. Strand yourself in a foreign country thousands of miles from home with no money. Play for tips so you can buy enough gas to get a few more miles down the road and hopefully another gig. In search of what? Who knows, but there�s something out there. Has to be. Maybe right over the next hill or across the next desert. Ryan is a nomad in search of answers. Instead he finds more questions. So the search continues. Then there�s the matter of hormones and youth. Most of the stuff on the wild side of town involves at least some fun. Otherwise, why would anyone go?

There are other integral ingredients in Ryan�s recipe for writing songs: Good vision: we all look, but few see with the clarity he does. Good hearing: we all listen, but we don�t all hear the same thing. And empathy for others: can you really feel what it�s like to be someone else in this world? Because if you can�t, you�re not going to connect with listeners. For whatever reason, only those that suffer develop empathy. It�s the victim of cancer than raises money to fight the disease, the mother that loses a child to a car wreck that fights drunk drivers to protect the child of another, the parents of a soldier lost in battle that stop a president cold in his tracks as he plans a war without regard for the soldiers that have to fight it. It�s he or she that has suffered heartbreak, been abused by the world, and battled insane thoughts that can connect to and help lead others out of those dark areas. Most great songs are written from a desperate place. Ryan has seen his share of desperate places. In the midst of hardship, sometimes self-imposed, Ryan manages to smile through the adversity.

Ryan�s latest CD, Dead Horses, consists of ten songs. There�s not a throwaway in the bunch. You�ll hear the calling of the highway and see the stops along the way. You�ll feel the pull of a good looking woman�s ass as she saunters by and then taste the sweetness of her lips underneath moonlight�truly one of God�s great gifts to mankind. A truck-stop waitress will offer kind words when no one else notices. Mexico will beckon. You�ll know the frustration of a laborer toiling in the sun just to make another rich and consider shortcuts like growing your own marijuana money tree. You�ll hear a higher calling and find hope and a longing for something better. All set to masterful licks on acoustic instruments with real roots sounds.

Ryan�s supporting cast call themselves the Dead Horses. These young men have to be made of stern stuff to hang with this traveling soul. If he�s eating out of a tip jar, then so are they. When he has a wreck, they will too, and Ryan will have his share of wrecks. I daresay if they aren�t forthcoming, he�ll go out and find a few. Mathew Smith plays drums, Corby Schaub the mandolin. Ryan plays an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. Between the three, they produce quite a variety of sounds. Doug Moreland, another West Texas native, added a nice touch on a fiddle for the Dead Horses album and also joined Ryan the night I caught his live show at Gruene Hall.

I am told there�s another CD in the works. I�ve heard a few tracks and it is good stuff.

Ryan is a diamond in the rough, not completely polished or refined, a trend setter. His style is uniquely his own. Some of the lyrics in his songs didn�t quite work for me at first pass. Next thing I knew, I�m talking and singing like he does, making the same �mistakes� until these mistakes become the new right way of saying things and I wouldn�t have it any other way. That�s how natural all of this comes to him. Dylan spoke of this, how at times it was though he heard things from another place, wrote them down, and then passed them along to the rest of us. No big deal. Except years later no big deal altered history and has become part of the fabric of our culture. Dylan was branded a visionary but couldn�t understand why. Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Steve Earle all shared this trait. They looked into the mirror and demanded sight. They did not flinch or turn away when things got ugly. And in each case, they did get ugly. Ryan also sees and understands his own flaws and shortcomings. Burdened with the knowledge of who and what he is, he�ll rebel against expectations society places upon him once lifted into an honored and revered place (I�d think less of him if he didn�t). With the raw talent he possesses, that is a place he�s almost sure to find.

I found Ryan to be a man comfortable in his own skin, without pretense, an easygoing type with a nice smile and a good manner. He�s a class act. But the man behind the song is what he is, and that�s not necessarily what you will want him to be. Billy Joe Shaver sings a song called "The Real Deal." In a business ripe with phonies and imitations, ready to sell their soul for a buck, Ryan is the real deal. He isn�t almost as good as the big name acts that preceded him. He�s better. He inherited what they had and is taking it to the next level. You�ll be doing yourself a favor by buying his CD�s and checking out his live show.

Note to Ryan: In Ray Wylie Hubbard�s words, what you�re searching for, you�re searching with.