Album Review: Ryan Bingham, American Love Song

Probably best known for the Oscar winning ‘The Weary Kind’ from 2009’s Jeff Bridges/Colin Farrell staring Crazy Heart, this is Bingham’s first album in four years, and it’s a proper, old school double, just like they used to make. With the help of Charlie Sexton, currently employed as Bob Dylan’s loyal guitar general, the man from New Mexico has produced a big and shiny country rocking LP. It’s a very enjoyable way to spend an hour.

More than a love song, this is a love letter to Bingham’s America. The cover couldn’t be anymore US of A for a start: a behatted Bingham leans against a big old Buick somewhere out on the road, perfectly reflecting the music in the grooves. Our man is “down at pinky’s roadhouse on highway 69” for the rollicking opener ‘Jingle And Go’ ("My Cadillac is cherry, my boots are crocodile"), ‘Nothin’ Holds Me Down’, and he’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash in my Pontiac” – you get the general idea. The music veers from acoustic blues, to country to Stones style rock n’ roll, with all the slide guitars and female vocal hollering you would expect and demand. Out front is Bingham's husky voice, calling up any amount of ghosts from America's musical past.

Flip the coin though and this obviously proud American is not happy with the way his country is being run by the current incompetent incumbent. He bemoans the president who “shits upon the nation, ridin’ on the back of a poor man, selling them lies” (‘Situation Station’), points out “there’s a racist man in the White House’ (‘Got Damn Blues’) and, most tellingly of all, asks “America where have you gone? There was a dream you gave us once” (‘America’)

Utilising the glorious strands of music that country has gifted the world, Bingham examines both the virtues and the flaws of modern American, but he doesn’t forget to have a good time while doing it. Recommended.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6MiafQveSkts5v397zarWq?si=vPAoM8YfTC6TCc6xY7XhDA