Ben Sollee
A classically trained cellist, Ben Sollee made his name as a backup musician before launching a songwriting career in 2008. Raised in Lexington, Kentucky, he began playing cello as a fourth-grade student and slowly blossomed into a talented instrumentalist, receiving encouragement from his two music-minded parents along the way. The family household was often filled with vintage soul music -- Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, Billie Holiday, and Otis Redding being the most consistent selections -- and Sollee's subsequent discovery of folk music helped round out his musical tastes. By the time he relocated to Louisville to pursue his craft professionally, he'd grown into an eclectic musician with demonstrated interests in folk, jazz, R&B, and bluegrass.
Although he'd already begun writing his own songs, Sollee received his first big break as a member of the Sparrow Quartet, an acoustic supergroup that also featured vocalist Abigail Washburn, banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, and violinist Casey Driessen. The group toured the world, visited Tibet at the behest of the U.S. State Department, and released several recordings, all of them adventurous projects that featured a blend of American and Asian folk traditions. Although several of his bandmates were more established than he, Sollee enjoyed a good deal of positive press for his contributions to the group, and NPR's Morning Edition named him one of the Top Ten Unknown Artists of the Year in 2007. One year later, he released an EP of his own material, If You're Gonna Lead My Country, and followed it with a full-length album named Learning to Bend.
The Sparrow Quartet continued to tour throughout much of 2008 and 2009, but Sollee also found time to play with other artists, including pianist Vienna Teng and fellow Kentucky native Daniel Martin Moore. A folk songwriter himself, Moore began composing a number of new songs with Sollee's help, and the two soon banded together for the creation of Dear Companion. A third Kentucky resident, My Morning Jacket's Jim James, produced the album, which was released by Sub Pop in February 2010. Initially wanting to bring himself closer to the communities where he was performing, Sollee became an advocate and spokesperson for environmental sustainability by doing a number of tours on his bicycle. A few months after the release of 2011's Inclusions, which he recorded with percussionist and longtime friend Jordan Ellis, he and three companions set out on a country-wide Ditch-the-Van tour, which involved biking from show to show in a certain region, then traveling by train to the next region.
His next LP, the self-produced and more band-oriented Half Made Man, arrived in September 2012, and was followed a year later by The Hollow Sessions, a collection of cover songs by artists like the Zombies, Tom Waits, and Paul Simon. He was later invited to perform at Carnegie Hall as part of a 2014 Paul Simon tribute concert. In 2015 Sollee composed the score for Naomi Iizuka's play At the Vanishing Point in Louisville, Kentucky. That same year he delivered Steeples, Pt. 1, the first of a pair of EPs; Pt. 2 was released the following spring. Arriving in late 2016, Sollee's fifth studio album, Infowars, was another collaboration with longtime percussionist Ellis, and the two toured extensively in support of it. He followed Infowars with the ensemble record Ben Sollee and Kentucky Native in the summer of 2017.
© Andrew Leahey /TiVo
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Land (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Back Lot Music le 12 févr. 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Learning to Bend
Rock - Paru chez Tin Ear Records le 10 juin 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ben Sollee and Kentucky Native
Pop - Paru chez Soundly Music, LLC le 11 août 2017
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet
Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet, Béla Fleck, Ben Sollee
Country - Paru chez Nettwerk Music Group le 6 mai 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Maidentrip (Original Motion Picture Score)
Pop - Paru chez sonaBLAST! Records le 14 févr. 2014
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Over The Pines (from the Motion Picture "Land")
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Back Lot Music le 1 févr. 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Live At the Grocery On Home (Live)
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez sonaBLAST! Records le 1 mai 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Learning to Bend
Folk - Paru chez sonaBLAST! Records le 19 août 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Few More Miles + Diamond Joe
Ben Sollee, Daniel Martin Moore
Pop - Paru chez SOFABURN RECORDS le 7 févr. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Slackwater
Folk - Paru chez Tin Ear Productions LLC le 20 oct. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Ben Sollee on Audiotree Live
Pop - Paru chez Audiotree Music le 27 juin 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Maggie Moore (s) (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Bandes originales de films - Paru chez Filmtrax Ltd. le 20 oct. 2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dear Companion
Ben Sollee, Daniel Martin Moore
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez SUB POP le 15 févr. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ruth (Original Score)
Alternatif et Indé - Paru chez sonaBLAST! Records le 13 juil. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Steeples, Pt. 2
Folk - Paru chez Tin Ear Records le 26 juin 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beauty Mark (Original Motion Picture Score)
Pop - Paru chez sonaBLAST! Records le 26 janv. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo