Ben Sollee – "Learning to Bend" Analysis

If I were to say to you “Louisville’s Ben Sollee is a master at convincing blue-eyed soul, effortless jazz, and care-free country” you would probably come to the reasonable conclusion that Ben Sollee is a scruffy 22-year old wearing his best faded jeans and western shirt, and pretending to know something about the roots of Blues, Soul, and jazz by playing scales over uninspired songs. This, however, would be one of your biggest misjudgements yet.

Ben Sollee chooses to craft his wonderful brand of pop-infected, vocal soul and country music with some out of the ordinary primary instruments; mostly cello, violin, vibraphone, and upright bass, while making extremely spare use of some more familiar components of those genres like electric guitars, drums, and electric bass. I know what you’re thinking, this gimmick must run thin after 4 or 5 songs, right? Wrong, see Mr. Sollee’s far above average vocal ability, and varied songwriting abilities make Learning to Bend feel like a mix-tape your friend recorded live for you, containing all of your favorite music performed in a very direct and heart-on-sleeve manner. It’s really quite something, and I encourage you to give it a listen, or just go ahead and buy it!

[mp3] Ben Sollee – Panning for Gold