Benjamin Tod – Shooting Star
Benjamin Tod has a new album Shooting Star, full of old time, old Western-inspired songs with Tod’s always blunt and plainspokenly honest lyrics. The album features a duet with Sierra Ferrell, harmonies with John R. Miller, Kyshona, fiddle by Billy Contreras, bass by Dennis Crouch, pedal steel by Chris Scruggs and more. The album was produced, recorded and mixed by Andrija Tokic at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville.
“I Ain’t The Man” is an old honky tonk setup with “I ain’t the man you think I am / I’ve been nice and clean for 90 days / But don’t the poke the wolf inside his cave / I can flip the script with a slight of hand /
Lord I ain’t the man you think I am.” This is a 2-step song of someone just trying like hell to stay steady.
“Saguaro’s Flower” is up next with the aching and raw pain of separation and an old time waltz: “Darlin’ since you’ve been gone / I can’t get back to where I belong / World still spins, clocks still tick and folks carry on / I’ve been sleeping alone in this hotel, casket home / Me and the drunks, and the fiends, and the whores all awake ’til dawn.” This one features Chris Scruggs on pedal steel and guitar and the song turns the clock back to the sound of a hobo’s lament but with modern vices mixed in.
“Back Toward the Blue” is a song of confession and regret: “I could’ve been a better man / But in my time I don’t know where or when / I couldn’t see that you would leave / Take with you all the good in me / When we began you took my hand / And you led me on like a charlatan / Forget me not when your world turns back toward the blue / I couldn’t eat I couldn’t sleep / I lived on cocaine and whiskey neat / You never called or cared at all / You told the town that our love was false…” and here the violin carries the tune into what sounds like an old wooden saloon setting.
“Mary Could You” (stitch me up) has an outlaw working up a plan after a big score, at a fast tempo made for dancing and moving on down the road (and baritone guitar). “On a westbound passenger train / Buyin’ my time drinkin’ red wine / Waitin’ for the signal to change / And there’s gold and hooch hidden in the caboose / And when the damn thing stops I’m ready to shoot.”
“Shooting Star,” the title track, has some sinister underpinnings and and the perhaps autobiographical observation on the music business: “Nothing can be beautiful when you’re trapped inside / And it’s hard to fall and it’s hard to fight / And I can’t betray my oath in spite / Music City on the rise / But I’ve always been denied / Wedged between the railroad and a gun / And the gate is shut up tight.” Poetic justice and simple honest expression. “Satisfied With Your Love” is an upbeat, plainspoken song about a love that’s simple and true, with lively piano. “One Last Time” closes the album with glorious harmonies and a duet with Sierra Ferrell that’s gritty, Southern-twangy goodness.
This is Benjamin Tod at his finest: with frank and straightforward songs about life’s painful experiences and with tales of outlaw survival. Find more details, tour dates and information here on his website: https://www.benjamintodmusic.com/ and save the music online here: https://orcd.co/btshootingstar
Enjoy our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Benjamin Tod “Songs I Swore I’d Never Sing”
and our interview here: Interview: Benjamin Tod and Ashley Mae of Lost Dog Street Band
Musicians on the album are Benjamin Tod on main vocals and guitar; John James Tourville on pedal steel, acoustic guitar, lead guitar, baritone guitar and mandolin; Chris Scruggs on pedal steel, lead guitar and acoustic guitar; Billy Contreras on fiddle; Jeff Taylor on piano and accordion; Dave Racine on drums; Jack Lawrence and Dennis Crouch on bass; Sierra Ferrell on duet vocals; John R. Miller, Timbo, Cotton Clifton, Bekah Raye Cope, Kyshona Armstrong, and Nickey Conley on backing vocals.
All songs were written by Benjamin Tod. The album was mastered by John Baldwin at Infrasonic Sound.
Album cover layout and design was by Cud Eastbound with front and back cover tintype photographs by Joseph W. Brown.
