Ryan Bingham - Live From Texas - Album Review

"RYAN BINGHAM LIVE" is his first live album. Recorded at the Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels, Texas on August 6, 2016, this compilation only features part of that almost two-hour concert, which at the time was live-streamed on gaming platform Twitch in connection with Amazon - I blogged about it here. The whole concert is still available on Amazon Prime as a stream or as a video download. 

It seems that some versions (digital & CD) of this album were available through Amazon, but now have a national distributor in Thirty Tigers and added the LP format. The album is now also available on iTunes and Spotify.

The Oscar, Gloden Globe and Grammy winner, who came to prominence with his co-write of "The Weary Kind" with T-Bone Burnett for the 2009 movie "Crazy Heart" (which won Jeff Bridges also the Oscar for best actor) was touring behind his studio album "FEAR AND SATURDAY NIGHT," when he made his stop outside of New Braunfels.

Playing in front of a solid rhythm section, Nate Barnes on drums and Shawn Davis on bass, backed by guitarists Daniel Sproul and Jedd Hughes, latter also on mandolin and as special guest Richard Bowden (Maines Brothers Band, Austin Lounge Lizards) providing all those hot fiddle licks, Bingham went through 19 tracks in this almost two-hour show. Most hailed from his major 2007 debut "MESCALITO," including a great version of his single "Southside of Heaven." Four songs stem from "FEAR AND SATURDAY NIGHT" and two each from "ROADHOUSE SUN" and "JUNKY STAR."

Besides his album cuts Ryan also included covers by Townes Van Zandt "Pancho & Lefty," Guy Clark "Dublin Blues," and Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried." It was really nice to see, Bingham including two songs of the then recently departed Clark and Haggard in front of such an enthusiastic crowd. Unfortunately, these cover versions are missing from the audio releases, as well as two "MESCALITO" compositions, the original opening song of the evening "Dollar A Day" and "Ever Wonder Why." Available though for the first time outside of the official soundtrack, is the above-mentioned theme song of the Grammy-winning movie "Crazy Heart," "The Weary Kind."

The clip below is from the live recording, the song "Radio" was originally released on "FEAR AND SATURDAY NIGHT."

Live-Concert ****(*)/***** 4.5/5
Audio products ***/*****3/5 (due to missing songs)



Sources: Amazon Concert Live Stream, Ryan Bingham, Releases.Red