Gotta be honest; I’d never heard Ryan Bingham (b. 1981) until I recently took a chance on Junky Star (2010.) Gotta be honest; I bought the CD because I liked the cover—design / imagery— and because it was produced by T Bone Burnett. Sometimes a person finds themselves in church for all the wrong reasons.
For me, this is a rare CD, one in which once it’s in the car player I keep repeating it, from 1-12 and back to 1. The sequence and pacing of individual cuts flow nicely, and the craft (tunes and production) holds a lot of interest. I had a difficult time choosing just one song for a mixed playlist.
Bingham’s voice is strained and gritty, so not everybody will be immediately attracted to his sound. Think of John Mellencamp, rather than the oft-compared Bob Dylan.