Ever since WXPN started championing the music of Americana singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham in 2007-2008, it's given me fits of existential angst: Maybe if my name was a few syllables shorter, and had I been in Texas, I coulda been a contender!
Bingham's song, "The Weary Kind," was the main theme of the movie "Crazy Heart," and won an Oscar, a Grammy and a Golden Globe. Now that's a rare hat trick!!! Here's "Crazy Heart"'s star, Jeff "The Dude" Bridges, performing it.
I recently fulfilled a professional goal, that I used to joke about ("Who's that guy running around out there imitating my name?!"), by interviewing Bingham. Here's a link to that story for you. When I asked him what songs he'd like to hear in a Ryan Bingham tribute show -- because you know my next step is to create a "Brian Bingaman Sings the Songs of Ryan Bingham" concert -- he left it wide open. "I just hope that whoever was doing it would play the songs that inspired them," he said. This would be one of them.
Now how the heck do I get that gravelly, raspy Tom-Waits-meets-Steve-Earle sound? The guy is 34 years old and sounds like that.
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