Ben Hall!

Tompkins Square

hall-bNashville-via-Mississippi thumbpicker Hall was brought to the Tompkins Square label by the late Charlie Louvin, who stumbled across him thanks to a casual stop by Hall at the Louvin Brothers Museum in Monteagle, Tenn.

Already established as a serious player and with several awards in hand, Hall hadn’t really considered a professional career. After backing up Louvin on several Tompkins Square releases, the label set him up to record his debut at Cowboy Technical Services, the workshop-style NYC studio co-owned by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel (former guitarist with Joan Jett, the Del Lords, the Yayhoos and Steve Earle).

Ambel told Good New Music by e-mail that he had no previous connection with Hall or with Tompkins Square founder Josh Rosenthal, saying simply, “I have built a reputation on making straightforward ‘performance-based’ records.”

Rosenthal, also reached by e-mail, corroborated, saying that Ambel had “great gear, a great track record, and I wanted to record in New York because Ben is so busy as a student in Nashville that it’s hard to pin him down.”

Hall, 22, is studying music at Belmont University. Besides playing on Louvin’s “Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs,” “Hickory Wind: Live at the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull, Waycross, GA” and “The Battle Rages On,” he also supported Kurt Wagner (Lambchop) and Cortney Tidwell on their collaboration under the name Kort, “Invariable Heartache.”

“Ben Hall!” is an easygoing, mostly instrumental collection (he sings tenor on two Merle Travis numbers, “Guitar Rag” and “Sweet Temptation”) that pays tribute to Travis and Chet Atkins, accompanied only by drums and bass. But more than just emulating classic albums by his heroes, he picks a few unusual songs to cover that fit right in after being given the Hall treatment, such as Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” and the Louvin Brothers’ “Every Time You Leave.”gnm_end_bug

Tracks
1. Cannonball Rag
2. Guitar Rag
3. Alabama Jubilee
4. Mimi & Me
5. Windy & Warm
6. Lover, Come Back To Me
7. There’ll Be Some Changes Made
8. Sweet Temptation
9. Oklahoma Hills
10. King Of The Road
11. Every Time You Leave

Total time: 30:32

External links
artist’s website
amazon.com
iTunes Store