JimBenning.Net » Music

Bry Webb: ‘Rivers of Gold’

Jim Benning — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:38:40 +0000

Love the spare sound of this.

Aurelio Martinez: ‘Mayahuaba’

Jim Benning — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 04:42:28 +0000

Aurelio is a Honduran musician and member of the Garifuna community. This song is from his new album, Laru Beya. It makes me happy.

Mayahuaba by subpop

While My Ukulele Gently Weeps

Jim Benning — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:54:07 +0000

Ukulele phenom Jake Shimabukuro covers The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” working his way into a pretty killer ukulele crescendo.

The Making of Neil Young’s ‘Le Noise’

Jim Benning — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 04:15:32 +0000

Great video about the making of Neil Young’s new album. Producer Daniel Lanois notes that it was recorded over four full moons because, “Neil has noticed that he’s written his best songs during that potent time.” He also talks about his use of “dub sonics” to arrive at a rich sound. As he has said elsewhere, “I extract from the track—I’ll take an available ingredient, extract it, process it, do what I want with it, and then stick it back into the song surgically.” Lanois says that Young “very kindly encouraged me to supply him with sonics that were descriptive to the landscapes that he was building with his lyrics.”

Storytelling in Joni Mitchell’s ‘For Free’

Jim Benning — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:25:03 +0000

One day I’d like to construct a writing seminar, maybe just two or three hours long, drawing lessons from the songs of Joni Mitchell. I’d include “For Free” — such a great song — for its subtlety and structure, its narrative arc. I was listening to it recently after reading Vivian Gornick’s book, The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative. I love the way the song describes such a mundane situation — seeing a street-corner musician – while also telling a story about the narrator’s conflicted feelings (Joni’s, I’m assuming).

‘The Field’ by Mason Jennings

Jim Benning — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 19:43:36 +0000

The most heartbreaking song about war I’ve ever heard.

‘Let the Earth Bear Witness’ by Mike Scott

Jim Benning — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:50:41 +0000

Inspired by the uprising in Iran, Mike Scott of The Waterboys set this Yeats poem to music. Beautiful.