One-man bands can be gimmicky affairs, with the player attempting to showcase his technical skill on numerous instruments at the expense of any real soul – or any real songs. Or they can be a forum for simply letting yourself wail, and making yourself sound like a full band in the process. Ben Prestage falls into the latter camp; his ability to play multiple stringed instruments and harmonica, combined with his foot-powered drum kit, makes him a veritable wall of sound on par with any number of trios or quartets in contemporary blues.
Prestage first came to attention in the mid-2000s when he placed in the top 5 for three years straight at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. Since then, the Florida native has released several albums independently and toured the United States (as well as playing as far away as northern Africa). His sound is deep, often dark, and reminiscent of all those early Delta bluesmen who had hellhounds on their trails, only much louder.
Ben Prestage's One Crow Murder
One Crow Murder is Prestage's most diverse album, with everything from howling cigar-box guitar blues to delicate ragtime played on acoustic. It opens with "Tell The Devil I'm Gone," a two-chord stomp on electrified resonator guitar. Chugging harmonica keeps the song rolling along, with Prestage's gravelly rasp floating above it all. The album ends with "Hoot With The Owls," a beautiful lap steel tune about being born for the night life. Prestage's lyrics are spare, letting the music do most of the talking, but when he sings "it takes all kinds of people to make this world go 'round/I can't do what you can do, but I can make some pretty sounds," it's as if he's giving us his one-man manifesto.
In between, there are enough highlights to make for a hell of a record. One of the best is the title track, on which the singer declares, "I'm a six-drink minimum hell of a time/I'm my own sidekick and partner in crime." A minor-key number with an offbeat rhyme scheme, it sounds like something from Tom Waits' Mule Variations. Prestage also channels his inner Tom on "Shine, Moon," with overdubbed chants punctuating growled, ultra-Waitsian lyrics like "the thunder's just as loud in the church and in the jail/so pour another drink and stir it with a coffin nail," to the sound of diddley bow and squalling electric guitar.
The Ballad of Ray and Ruby
"Amsterdam Rag" is an acoustic guitar rag about a man whose woman leaves him to move to a country where pot is legal. It's catchy, up-tempo and fun – a nice counterbalance to the dark subject matter of much of the album. (Witness "Take Sick and Die," a traditional blues song Prestage takes on lap steel, playing alternating bass with his thumb; it ends with a hymnlike dirge.) "The Ballad of Ray and Ruby" is a rambling narrative about a man who goes to jail for defending his girlfriend, but ultimately gets his revenge on the men who sent him away. On "Wish I Was In New Orleans," Prestage uses his foot drums to provide ersatz second-line percussion, singing about the town "where the present meets the past/where hip-hop and Cajun meet jazz."
The album includes several cover tunes. "When I First Met You Baby" is a song by Jesse Fuller, whose own one-man act was clearly an influence on Prestage. His version is almost carnivalesque, with harmonica that sounds like an accordion. And Tampa Red's "If You Want Me To Love You" gets more brutal as it progresses, with its murderous laundry list of things the singer's love interest must accomplish to gain her lover's acceptance. Prestage's single-string slide runs emulate those of the song's composer. Also, here and on several other tracks, Prestage adopts the unfortunate mannerism of dropping the last word of a lyrical line; it's a device that works the first time you hear it, but wears thin over the course of an album.
Ken's Bottom Line
But such complaints are minor given the quality of the album as a whole. Ben Prestage knows how to do the one-man band thing without sounding like he's showing off, and he's to be commended for that. While his technical skill is impressive, it never sounds like he's trying to wow the listener; rather, his playing is always in service to the song. One Crow Murder is a fine disc that never settles into a predictable groove, and it's Prestage's most accomplished – and most idiosyncratic – album yet. (Ben Prestage Music, released March 26, 2011)
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