Ryan Bingham

If this guy ever clears his throat, his career could end. Ryan Bingham's raspy voice sounds like he was raised in a Texas dust devil and his music is so soddened in rootsy Americana tones that should Hollywood ever make a biopic on the Band, Bingham could provide the score. But there is also an authentic outlaw country soul to his more up-tempo songs that sounds more convincing than Shooter Jennings' attempt to pick up the pieces left by his late father. If your heel doesn't start tapping to the rowdy slide guitar and handclaps on "Bread & Water," music might be none of your business.

Singer-songwriter Bingham is the proudest Texan this side of Hank Hill: He writes lyrics
overflowing with border-town imagery that dances just to the edge of cowboy cliché;
earns his sepia-toned album cover with a dusty wood-and-steel sound; and despite being
twenty-five, sings like Steve Earle's dad. All the mood-setting can get tiresome, but his best
songs rock the hardest: the hand-clappy rave-up "Bread and Water" and the anti-... More >