Ryan Bingham Mescalito CD

Personnel: Ryan Bingham (vocals, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, harmonica, shaker, hand claps, background vocals); Terry Allen (vocals, piano); Marc Ford (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, slide guitar, lap steel guitar, hi-hat, shaker, tambourine); Corby Schaub (electric guitar, mandolin, kettle drum, hand claps, background vocals); Mike Starr (slide guitar, fiddle); Stéphane Bossard (banjo); Doug Moreland, Jason Carter (fiddle); Brian Standefer (cello); Bukka Allen (accordion); Mike Malone (piano); John Bazz (upright bass); Matt Smith , Rick Lonow (drums, percussion); Anthony Arvizu (tambourine).
Audio Mixers: Marc Ford ; Anthony Arvizu.
Recording information: Butcher Shop Studios, Nashville, TN; Screen Door Music Studios; The Compound, Long Beach, CA.
Author: Ryan Bingham.
Illustrator: Boyd Elder.
Photographers: Coy Koehler; Jon Gries.
With his 2007 debut, singer-songwriter Ryan Bingham joins legions of young country artists in affecting an outlaw persona. But with Bingham there's a difference: he actually seems authentic. Although a tender 25 at the time he released MECSALITO, Bingham had been living on the road since his mid-teens, working the rodeo, and gathering hard luck stories. That experience is reflected in Bingham's surprisingly intimate, powerful songs; his textured, grit-flecked voice; and his penchant for mixing rock, folk, hard country, and Mexican flavors. The result is a first effort that stands out from the pack.
Loneliness runs rampant in Texas, where arid flatlands and empty highways converge to influence some of country's best songwriting. Newcomer Ryan Bingham is cut from the same dusty denim cloth as Texan troubadours Billy Joe Shaver and Willie Nelson, having crisscrossed the Lonestar State for years in search of employment, housing, or something else to inspire his road-weary songwriting. He makes his major-label debut with Mescalito, a bilingual collection of melancholic Americana that often delves into roadhouse country-rock. To those familiar with the genre, Bingham's lyrics are somewhat predictable accounts of hard times, rivers' edges, and fieldwork, all sung in a wizened rasp whose sandpapered texture is impressive coming from a 25-year-old songwriter. Years of sleeping outside rodeo arenas in a truck bed have done a number on Bingham's throat, lending him a sense of rustic authenticity that would otherwise be absent. He may be young, but that cracked voice is testament to Bingham's experiences since leaving his parents' home during childhood. It's the voice of roadside bars and last calls, of bull-riding gigs and border town trailer parks. "I've been working in the goddamn sun for just one dollar a day," he croaks, and clichés be damned, you cannot help but believe him. When he's singing about marijuana plants or casually slipping into Spanish during a lonesome Mexican ballad, Bingham truly distinguishes himself from his country contemporaries, playing the rugged outlaw to Nashville's smooth Rascal Flatts. Where he falters is the album's homogeneity, as too many tracks adopt a midtempo pace whose haunting effect wears thin. One can't help but wish for more country-rock grit, but Mescalito nevertheless bodes well for this upstart's future work. ~ Andrew Leahey