Ryan Bingham
Eclectic roots-based singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham vaulted from obscurity to stardom in 2009 when he won an Oscar for co-writing "The Weary Kind" with T-Bone Burnett. The song was the centerpiece of Crazy Heart, a drama about a country singer that won Jeff Bridges the Academy Award for Best Actor, and it established Bingham as a troubadour, giving him the opportunity to pursue a career that walked the line separating country and Americana. In the wake of Crazy Heart, Bingham appeared on the country charts, but by the time he left Lost Highway to establish his own imprint, Axster/Bingham, his music had turned more idiosyncratic, a shift highlighted on the dark 2015 set Fear and Saturday Night and its robust 2019 sequel, American Love Song. After a recurring guest role on the hit drama Yellowstone, Bingham offered up the deeply personal, self-produced album Watch Out for the Wolf in 2023.
Ryan Bingham was raised in rural Texas, where years of hardscrabble ranch work and rodeo competitions would later lend a sense of authenticity to his music. Living alone since his mid-teens, he shuttled back and forth between Southwestern border towns and relatives' homes, often sleeping in his truck after rodeo shows. It was during those treks that he began entertaining friends with the guitar, an instrument he'd learned at the age of 17 from a mariachi-playing neighbor. Drawing inspiration from Bob Dylan, Marshall Tucker, and Bob Wills -- all of whom populated the jukebox of The Halfway Bar, a roadhouse owned by Bingham's uncle (whose musical tastes influenced those of his nephew) -- he fashioned a road-weary sound that piqued the interest of a barroom proprietor in Stephenville, Texas. Bingham was offered a weekly residency at the bar; soon after, he began issuing self-released albums like Lost Bound Rails and Wishbone Saloon. The material was brought to the attention of Nashville heavyweights Lost Highway Records, which signed Bingham and issued his major-label debut, Mescalito (featuring production by Marc Ford, former guitarist for the Black Crowes), in October 2007.
Mescalito was well received by critics, with Rolling Stone aptly comparing Bingham's raw, scratchy voice to that of "Steve Earle's dad." After supporting the album with ample tour dates, the songwriter reprised his relationship with Marc Ford, who produced 2009's Roadhouse Sun. Later that year, he joined another music veteran -- producer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett -- in contributing music to the film Crazy Heart. Revolving around the attempted comeback of a down-and-out country singer, Crazy Heart became one of the year's highest-praised films and won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for "The Weary Kind," one of Bingham's original compositions written with Burnett, the soundtrack's musical director and producer. Bingham and his band the Dead Horses followed it with the album Junky Star in September 2010, which was produced by Burnett.
Bingham left Lost Highway after three albums and released 2012's Tomorrowland, recorded in Malibu, California, and co-produced by Bingham and Justin Stanley, on Bingham's own newly created Axster Bingham Records imprint. Written in the seclusion of an old Airstream trailer in the woods of California, the Jim Scott-produced Fear and Saturday Night appeared in January 2015 and explored in detail his unstable upbringing. He followed it a year later with the concert set Ryan Bingham Live.
In 2018, Bingham took a role as an itinerant ranch hand on the hit neo-Western television drama Yellowstone and made occasional guest appearances over the next two seasons. Meanwhile, he returned in February 2019 with his seventh long-player, American Love Song. Co-produced by Charlie Sexton, the double album won critical acclaim for its raucous backwoods feel and unflinching tales of tragedy and triumph. For his next project, Bingham again secluded himself, this time in the wilderness of Montana, where he wrote, played, recorded, and mixed entirely on his own. The resulting album, 2023's stripped-down and intimate Watch Out for the Wolf, was self-released and distributed by Thirty Tigers.
© Andrew Leahey /TiVo
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Watch Out for the Wolf
Country - Released by The Bingham Recording Co. on 11 aug. 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mescalito
Rock - Released by Lost Highway Records on 1 jan. 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
American Love Song
Folk - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 15 feb. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Junky Star
Rock - Released by Lost Highway Records on 27 aug. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Fear and Saturday Night
Pop - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 19 jan. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ryan Bingham Live (Live)
Folk - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 12 jan. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tomorrowland
Rock - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 18 sep. 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ride Me Down Easy
Country - Released by New West Records, LLC on 4 nov. 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Weary Kind
Pop - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 23 aug. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Where My Wild Things Are
Country - Released by The Bingham Recording Co. on 23 jun. 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Roadhouse Sun
Rock - Released by Lost Highway Records on 1 jun. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Junky Star (International Version)
Rock - Released by Lost Highway Records on 27 aug. 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
How Shall A Sparrow Fly (From "Hostiles" Soundtrack)
Originele soundtracks - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 5 jan. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Until I'm One with You
Alternative en Indie - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 25 jun. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Back By The River (Live)
Blues - Released by Concord Records on 9 sep. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Roadhouse Sun (Amazon Exclusive)
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16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Country Called Home
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24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Pontiac
Folk - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 1 feb. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wolves
Folk - Released by Axster Bingham Records on 30 nov. 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Possum Kingdom
Rock - Released by Lower Colorado Record Authority on 6 jul. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Roadhouse Sun (iTunes Exclusive)
Rock - Released by Lost Highway Records on 1 jun. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo