Ben Weaver - Drag The Hills
31-year-old Minnesota resident, Ben Weaver, arrives in the UK today to begin a tour that will see him perform in front of an ever growing British fanbase. Material from stripped back third album Mirepoix And Smoke will come to life in a series of intimate shows.
This follow-up to The Axe In The Oak saw Weaver go through a number of life changes and eventually decide to return to his roots. After a divorce, he returned to the Midwest and musically fell in love again with folk and blues. This is an album which sees barely more than the banjo, guitar, and earthy vocals set the scene. As a result a piece of the wilderness exists in every moment. Drag The Hills is a fantastic stand-out track which encapsulates the life-affirming new outlook its creator found upon emergence from painful experiences. A poignant line "I'd rather have scars from the life I lived/ Than have none from the one I missed," emphasises a bull-by-the-horns attitude.
Weaver was working as a cook in a farm-to-table restaurant in Minneapolis when the songs began to emerge. The resulting album is an immediate, unrestrained, heart-warming affair. "I wanted them (tracks) to be like unbroken horses that had never known a saddle," he says. Not much time was needed to record the material in Chicago. Only three days was spent with Neil Strauch as the spirit of the backwoods. "That's how they felt truest to me, so that's how I left them, wild."
Ben Weaver - Drag The Hills by Stayloose
Tour Dates
1st February, Upstairs @ Santiago, Leeds
2nd February, Greystones, Sheffield
3rd February, Maze @ Forest Tavern, Nottingham
4th February, Twyforn Swiss Cottage, Winchester
5th February, The Basement, Brighton
8th February, Green Note, London
5:30 AM | 01/02/2011
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