aaamusic | On 28, Mar 2011

Through Tompkins Square comes yet another brilliant musician Ben Hall with his debut ‘Ben Hall!‘.

The Oklona, Mississippi artist’s record is a great exhibition of some real southern American guitar playing likened to that of Merle Travis. Ben Hall learned his first basic chords at the tender age of seven and really got going when he turned 12 upon seeing an expert picker by the name of Comer Moon Mullins. He was approached by Charlie Louvin and asked to work with him but Hall declined explaining that he was studying music at Belmont University to which Louvin didn’t take to kindly to. Luckily for Hall he was able to reunite with Louvin at his 80^th birthday in 2007 and was asked to play with him that very same night, going on to the Grand Ole Opry and then later on tour.

Upon listening to the album I thought that it was a really well made recording, with a clean guitar sound and superb finger picking conjuring up an image of an American country landscape. The cover songs such as ‘King Of The Road’ are expertly played with Hall branding them with his very own mark. The album is due to be released on March 29^th through Tompkins Square and produced by Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel in New York. If you have an appreciation for the electric guitar then I reckon you’d really like this one.

Author: Ahmed Pandor