Singer-songwriter Ben Brookes Belcher first picked up a guitar at the age of ten, and the excitement that he feels when he picks up his guitar is the same today as it was when he first started playing three decades ago says Ben. The first time he heard Chet Atkins his fate was sealed; spellbound, he would spend hours upon hours trying to emulate that sound. After several years working in coal fields of West Virginia and performing at clubs around Charleston, Ben agreed to head out with a band on tour.
As he spent the next couple of decades on the road, he matured as both writer and musician, sharing stages with dozens of artists including Charlie Daniels, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Suzy Boggess, and Little Texas. Despite the critical acclaim that he found touring as one half of Hank Laww, playing alongside Tony Cottrell under the direction of Bill Halverson (of Crosby Stills Nash Young and Eric Clapton fame), Ben eventually decided it was time to set out on his own.
Ben Brookes Belcher has since released various albums with his latest being “Place In The Sun”. This album is a characteristically conservative yet touching display of midlife musical resolve. Ben refines a formula that balances the abandon of a roadhouse rocker with the control of a poignant Americana singer-songwriter and becomes that rare pontificator who can encore with a convincing swampy instrumental blues number like “Nuff Said” or a Country-styled toe-tapper like “Nobody Knows”.
Ben covers the established mainstream styles with “Red Dog Road” (rural rock), “River With No Name” (floor-pounding Americana) and “Just The Way You Are” (earnest romantic ballad). “Eyes Of Love” is particularly fine, with Ben’s expressive sandy voice framed by the layered guitars and a strongly beating drum.
“Mind’s Eye” evokes a gentle, introspective porch-front styled croon, under a starlit sky, underscoring the nature of Ben’s wide-ranging artistic influences with a lyric about gaining inspiration from looking inside your dreams.
Ben Brookes Belcher shows us the ability to craft little stories in the confines of a pop song. Every song is filled with character, atmosphere and images, surrounded by irresistible melodies and a terrific rhythm section.
This is beautifully exemplified in the track, “Place In The Sun”, possibly Ben’s strongest, most accessible and polished song. The track hums like a finely-tuned V8 cruising down a long, flat road. It runs on a simply intoxicating bass line! The acoustically-dominated “Roll Over Me”, doesn’t fall far behind, when it comes to a mesmerizing melody and uplifting spirit.
Ben Brookes Belcher is an excellent songwriter, to which his catalog plays perfect testimony. If you want to know and hear some good American Rock then do yourself and your neighbors a favor, get some of this music. All throughout, Ben’s voice is rich and he’s in full control of his musical creations which cover the entire heartfelt Americana-based spectrum.
He sounds confident and assured, backed by a crystal-clear production. You wouldn’t expect less from a musician with his long standing experience!
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