TWO CRAZY HEARTS: BINGHAM BASHES & ROARS; THE DUDE CAN SING

Tomorrowland
2012

726 Miles To Go

Through his first four efforts - including the Crazy Heart soundtrack - Ryan Bingham wandered the West Texas alt-country territory of pains, trains and broken hearts.

Playing Americana earned him a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Critics Choice Award for The Weary Kind from the Crazy Heart soundtrack. 

This time Bingham's riding a completely different range.

"Well, come on honey won't you take my hand/We got a heart full of rhythm they don't understand," he implores on Heart of Rhythm.

With fewer players than his previous efforts (Matt Sherrod on drum, Shawn Davis on bass, and Bingham on guitars), Tomorrowland leaves the no depression world behind for bashes and roars of bitterness, hopefulness and political fury.

Tomorrowland is a big rock 'n' roll record with sonic Pink Floyd/Radiohead atmospheres and screeching guitar riffs from the Jack White songbook.

Beg For Broken Legs, Western Shore, Guess Who's Knocking and Heart Of Rhythm blow the windows out early. And, the ballads are played with an edge.

Flower Bomb blasts away at today's America ("How in the hell can we progress/If we're all out of work/Hooked on pills for stress") and Rising of the Ghetto is an eight-minute plus call for revolution.

It might take a crazy heart to move away from a winning formula, but Bingham says:

"I'm going to join the protest
I'm going to stand up and sing
This time once again, stand up and be a man
Cause this land was made for you and me"
  - Too Deep To Fill

We should all take the ride to his Tomorrowland. 

Song For The Soundtrack: Guess Who's Knocking

Jeff Bridges
2011

The Jeff Bridges (2011) record could be the post-sobriety comeback for Crazy Heart's Bad Blake.

Or, maybe it's a Maude-funded project to help The Dude recover from Donny's death in The Big Lebowski.

Either way, it's further proof Jeff Bridges can sing and write on his second full-length release; 2000's Be Here Soon was the first.

T Bone Burnett mans the production controls and keeps Bridges rooted in the folk/country style he sang so well in Crazy Heart. There's nothing here that tops Hold On You, Somebody Else or Fallin' & Flyin' from the movie soundtrack.

But, "Sometime's fallin' feels like flyin'/For a little while" does rate as an all-time classic.

None of the songs rise above a quiet rumble and the Bridges-written Tumbling Vine grows into recent Tom Waits territory. Bridges also wrote the reflective Falling Short and has co-writing credit with Burnett on the drifting Slow Boat.

The influence of his Heaven's Gate movie co-star Kris Kristofferson is evident throughout. Marc Ribot (a frequent Waits player) and Burnette take care of the guitar work, while background vocalists include Ryan Bingham, Sam Phillips and Rosanne Cash.

"It makes me happy when I'm looking back," Bridges sings on Maybe I Missed The Point. "I'm not saying my whole life feels like a joke/But I've been a master of mirrors and smoke."

Dismissing Jeff Bridges as smoke and mirrors would just as surely miss the point.

Face it, The Dude can sing.

Song For The Soundtrack: Maybe I Missed The Point

Running Data for Sunday, April 14
8.90 Miles
1:44:10

Mileage In The Change Jar: 0.55 Miles